Gabriel Okara: Analysing "Once upon a time".

THE vocalizer in this song reminisces about a time when tidy sum were sincere and caring in their dealings with angiotensin converting enzyme a nonher; he speaks regretfully about the present time, when raft be non a same(p) before. He get windms to feel that people have confounded the ingenuousness and openness which he outright sees in his young son; he wants to regain that innocence.

The poem starts with the well-known words Once upon a time, suggesting that what the speaker is going to put is a fairy tale, something so far-fetched it talent not even be believed. This makes us think that verity in expressing emotion is so rare nowadays that it a great deal is a fairy tale.

The poet creates a contrast between hearts and faces. Hearts suggests deep, honest emotion. Thus, when people put-oned or shook reach with their hearts, their emotions came from within. Now, however, they laugh with their teeth, not with their look. It is a cliché that the eye are the windows of the soul, nevertheless they do let us see what a person might be substantively feeling.

If soul laughs with their eyes, we can see their emotions. But teeth, which are hard, white, and expressionless, reveal nothing. And the peoples eyes have now become ice-block-cold, revealing no warmth. citizenry are now dishonest (while shaking hands, they use the free people hand to search my empty pockets) and insincere, severaliseing things they do not mean.

The speaker tells us that he has learnt to deal with this hard, insincere foundation by becoming just like on the whole the separate people; he too hides his real emotions and speaks words he clearly does not mean. He describes his behaviour in an evoke way, saying that he has learnt to enter many faces / analogous dresses - like dresses, he changes his face, taking one off and exchanging it for something more worthy: homeface / officeface / streetface and so on.

We can look at these faces as a series of masks or false faces, which show no real emotion. These faces, unlike hearts, are not sincere. But they are not the faces of evil people either. They are, in fact, the social faces that everyone has to put on in order to deal with all the people they are apparent to encounter in their lives. Most of us do disclose different faces - that is, we do behave differently - depending on whether we are at home or the office or civilise or a party.

The speaker wants to be as innocently sincere as his young son. He wants to unlearn all these muting things; this suggests that he has learnt how to behave in a way which mutes or silences his real emotions. He wants to get rid of his false laugh which shows only my teeth like a snakes bare fangs - the similarity with the snakes fangs makes the false, mask-like smile seem dangerous. The speaker regrets the vent of his innocence, but hopes his son can teach him.

Once Upon a beat is an emotional poem about the story of a vainglorious up man--who once was an innocent child. His adult human beings has lost the charm of his childhood years. The poet describes how the process of growing up transforms the innocence of childhood. After entering the adult world, the young adults will little by little forget how to laugh with their hearts.



While growing up, the cold world intimidated our main character. He used to sense

Peoples insincerity and their picayune laughs, because they only laugh[ed] with their teeth,/while their ice-block-cold eyes/search[ed] behind [his] shadow It is a vicious circle: once someone has entered the adult world, he will change--then change others. Our character will learn how to say things that he doesnt really mean: I have likewise learned to say, Goodbye,/when I mean Good riddance;/to say Glad to meet you,/without being glad; and to say Its been/ nice talking to you, after being bored 2 Like everyone else, our main character was forced to grow up--in order to line up to the adult world: I have learned to wear many faces/like dresses--homeface,/officeface, streetface, hostface, cock-/tail face, with all their conforming smiles/like a fixed portrait smile In this self-serving world, our character learned how to adapt; he adapted a little too well. He now can land the adult role without any problem. However, once he became a parent, parenthood seems to have helped him to remember the innocent world of his childhood. Because of his son, he wants to re-learn how to be sincere.

His son holds the key to this old, forgotten world. What a rattling(prenominal) poem! It presents in such(prenominal) a simple manner, such a complicated subject: the pain of growing up, and the loss of innocence.

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