There is a child in everyone. But if that child is suffocated, beaten, abandoned or made to grow up too fast, there will erupt an adult that is bitter, angry and full of hate. To build a beautiful society is to invest in the little child. This is why Hafsat Abdullahi speaks vehemently about children in her poem “Hope for African Children.” The poem talks about investing in quality education for children, especially those who are underprivileged. This poem has been analysed in the paragraphs below using the theories of Psychoanalysis and Marxist Criticism.
Psychoanalysis theory is one gotten from pyschology and the key concepts that would be taken from this theory for the analysis are psyche, the conscious, and the unconscious. These are concepts gotten from Carl Jung's perspective of the psychoanalysis theory.
In psychology, the psyche is the totality of the human mind, conscious and unconscious, while in psychoany, it refers to the forces in an individual that influence thoughts behaviour and personality. According to Carl Jung, it also includes the overlap and tension between the personal and collective elements in man. It consists of the totality of all psychic processes, conscious as well as unconscious.
The unconscious can be split into the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. The personal unconscious factors are unique to individuals and involves one's family, hometown, friends and experiences. The collective unconscious, however, can be defined as the innate response of human genetics that are not influenced by personal factors and experiences. It is essentially intuition, fight-or-flight, and the deeply rooted unconscious primal instincts found in mythology and fairytales. On the other hand, the conscious is also called the Ego.
Jung believes in Individuation which is the concept of balancing the conscious (ego), with the unconscious.
The second theory, the Marxist Literary Theory, is one that analyses how literature portrays the relationship between classes in the society in terms of equality, marginalization and oppression. Key concepts include class, marginalization, bourgeoisie versus proletariat, and power Dynamics. Class refers to a system of groupunb people based on their level of access to or control of economic and political powerm the two main classes that are recognized are the upper class consisting of the bourgeoisie, and the lower class consisting of the proletariat.
The Bourgeoisie refers to those who own the means of production and oppress the working class, while the Proletariat are the labour force who are constantly being oppressed by the bourgeoisie. They are lower/working class people.
Marginalization refers to the state where a particular group of people are pushed to the sidelines or the borders of recognition. They are marginalized.
Oppression connotes a limitation being imposes on a particular group of people such that they do not have access to what belongs to them and their rights are trampled upon.
The poem under study addresses the unavailability of opportunities to succeed in the light of poverty. It highlights the state of the Proletariat who have no access to the resources needed to finance their dreams. Therefore, in this view, it is a waste of time to dream and discover that one can only “aspire to retire”.
The poem focuses on children who have be born in the class of the Proletariat and have to wake up to the realigh that “aspirations are only attainable when reachable.” These children have also had their personal unconscious structured by the pictures they see around. The collective unconscious teaches them to be afraid of risking their heart and the society confirms their fears.
When the poet talks about poverty, she notes that it brings the “child to a place to fear; a place where [he] can see his dreams with pockets too crippled to take [him] there”. In the light of this fight-or-flight situation, if the child is exposed more and more to impossibilities, his personal unconscious becomes structured to think that he can achieve nothing in life.
This shows that a society full of limitations and oppression affects the mind of the person as he reacts to situations in life. He can choose to dream and abandon those dreams in the dimness of lack, because “[his] goals make [him] perspire each time [he watches] them expire before him”. However, the poet encourages the chance of a change if Africans would rise up to create opportunities for themselves, especially the children.
In the light of contemporary times, there have been popular opinions of “school na scam”, or “this life no balance” and when one looks at the African society, it is safe to say that the economic and political situation seems intent on crippling dreams. Despite the plain truth which suggests that a dream unfinanced is a dream unachieved, if Nigerians would wake up to change their story there would be hope.
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