6 September 2010
"Butterfly," by Chinua Achebe
Image copyright (©) and picture creditSpeed is violence
Power is violence
Weight is violenceThe butterfly seeks safety in lightness
In weightless, undulating flightBut at a crossroads where mottled light
From trees falls on a brash new highway
Our convergent territories meetI come power-packed enough for two
And the gentle butterfly offers
Itself in bright yellow sacrifice
Upon my hard silicon shield.
© Chinua AchebeMatt says: This poem is about excess of force. Excess means wealth which means comfort. The driver, comfortable, speeding along the highway, protected by the product of his knowledge, going somewhere (where?) occupies a man-made space. The butterfly, meandering towards the sunlight, directionless, a natural one. The contrast of forces is between man as technological and the butterfly as biological. The butterfly is blessed. The driver, fallen from grace, violent.
Sacrifice usually means transfiguration - grace overcoming violence and death. Not in this case. They meet at the crossroads, a pastoral image but also a location of business, exchange - perhaps therefore politics. If you need a political interpretation then consider the poem as about the comfortable violence of wealth.
Maya Jaggi says: The car crash in Nigeria in 1990 that left him in a wheelchair gives an appalling resonance to "Benin Road", which records a collision between a butterfly that "seeks safety in light- ness / In weightless, undulating flight" and a driver "power-packed for two". As "the gentle butterfly offers / Itself in bright yellow sacrifice / Upon my hard silicon shield", the poem not only underlines the poet's own vulnerability, but offers a metaphor for human fragility in the face of overwhelming power and violence.
Someone says:
- What do you think the butterfly might be meant to represent in this poem?
- What might the automobile represent?
- What does their collision represent?
- What in Achebe’s experience makes this poem particularly ironic?
