Poetry Explication

By:
Chan Bao Qiong
Johnny Voo Kai Lik
Lau Chin Chin
A Death in The Ward

By Wong Phui Nam

Let Us Know The Poet…
 Wong Phui Nam
• Date of Birth : September 1935
• Place of birth : Kuala Lumpur
• Education :
– early in two Chinese schools in Kuala
Lumpur's Chinatown.
– Batu Road School
– Victoria Institution in 1949
– University of Malaya in Singapore for a BA
(Hons) in Economics
• Occupations:
– Assistant Controller of the Industrial
Development Division of the Ministry of
Commerce in Kuala Lumpur
– joined the Malaysian International
Merchant Banking Ltd
• After he retired in 1989,
– he wrote a poetry column for The New
Straits Times and taught briefly at a private
college.
– He is now a training and marketing
consultant in a private company.
Background of Poet
• When Phui Nam was four years old, his
mother died of kidney failure.
• His father died five years later in April
1944, during the Japanese Occupation.
• These had affect him a lot in his early
writing.
In Poetry…
• had dabbled in poetry while at the V.I. but had
not shown his works to anyone.
• was inspired by the Singapore poet Edwin
Thumboo who had just published his first
work Rib of Earth
• edited the student journal The New Cauldron

Dabble in- take part in an activity in a casual or

superficial way.
• later chiefly responsible for two anthologies
Litmus One:
– Selected University Verse, 1949-1957
– Thirty Poems
• Most of the poems Phui Nam wrote during the
sixties first appeared in Bunga Emas, an
anthology of Malaysian literature edited by
fellow Victorian T. Wignesan.
• 1968:
– They were subsequently collected in
book form and published as How the
Hills are Distant (Tenggara
Supplement) by the Department of
English, University of Malaya.
• 1970s & the early 1980s:
– remained relatively silent
• 1989:
– 2nd volume Remembering Grandma and
Other Rumours was published by the
English Department, National University of
Singapore.
• 1993:
– His Ways of Exile was published by Skoob.
• Phui Nam's poems have appeared in
– Seven Poets
– The Second Tongue
– The Flowering Tree
– Young Commonwealth Poets '65
– Poems from India, Sri Lanka, Singapore
and Malaya
 Synopsis
• The poem is about
–A death occurred in a ward
–The writer witness a death when
he was admitted in the hospital
• First Stanza
–The old Manickam gave up to
continue survive.
• Second Stanza
–The condition before Manickam
died
–He kept on retching.(make the sound
and movement of vomiting)
• Third Stanza
–The writer was admitted in the
ward, together with old Manickam
• Fourth Stanza
–The writer was admitted in the
hospital because he got jaundice.
–He did not want to be in the ward.
–It told the time, that is on 6 p.m.
• Fitfh Stanza
–Decribes the acts of medical
personnel on Manickam’s death
• Sixth Stanza
–The writer imagined he was dead
and wondered the condition
during his death
–Describes the condition after
Manickam’s death
• Seventh Stanza
– Describes the scene in the ward in the
morning
– The writer however hoped to continue
survive.
• Eighth Stanza
– The writer recalled back the death
happened around him.
– Describe the situation during in the public
morgue.
 Theme

• The MAIN theme:

– The sufferance of old folk to face their
death
• They had to face with pain during
sickness
• They feel despair to survive
• They are worried about their death
• Sub-theme:
Caring on old folk
– Manickam felt hopeless to survive
– His people should give support to him
Treat the dead people in good manner
– The medical personnel do not to be gentle
to Manickam’s body after he died
– They should not have that attidude
 Setting
• Place:
–Ward in a hospital
–Public morgue
• Time:
–Before and after 6 p.m.
 Point of view

• First Person of view

I
– “All day dreamt fitfully, laid out in bed.”

(3rd stanza 1st line)

– He express his feeling and thoughts when he was
admitted in the hospital.
 Poetry Devices
• Pattern
• Personification
• Imagery
• Symbols
• Metaphor
• Hyperbole
 Pattern
• Has 8 stanzas
• 4 lines in each stanza = Quantrain
• Free style
• Free rhythm
• Tone = sorrow
 Personification
• A process of assigning human characteristics
to non-human objects
• Examples:
– “All of his sixty-seven years were locked
inside his skull.” (2nd stanza, 3rd and 4th lines)
– “The fluorescent lamps from their high ceiling
hurt our eyes.”(3rd stanza, 2nd and 3rd lines)
 Imagery
• Images, pictures or sensory content which find
in a poem
• Examples:
– “…useless match-sticks
of his legs.”(1st stanza, 3rd and 4th lines)
– Match-sticks of his legs = his legs are as thin
as match-sticks, give us visual of old
Manickam’s legs
– “…We were clay-skinned…”
(3rd stanza, 3rd line)
– Clay-skinned = our skin like the clay
the skin is as rough as the
clay
 Symbolism
• A thing that represents or stands for
something else
• Examples:
– “…We were clay-skinned, great deformed
caterpillars”(3rd stanza, 3rd line)
– “…the splendour of the breaking light at a dawn,
of the spirit newly risen.”(7th stanza, 3rd and 4th
lines)
• clay-skinned
– the poet and Manickam were old
• great deformed caterpillars
– The poet and Manickam were very weak
• the splendour of the breaking light at a dawn
– hope
 Metaphor
• Compares one thing to another directly
• When the poet uses metaphor, he or she will
transfer the qualities and associations of one
object to another so that it is more vivid.
• Examples:
– “Sunk among dry sheets
He began to give up on the useless match-sticks
of his legs.”
(1st stanza, 2nd until 4th lines)

~Manickam felt hopeless to continue his life.

– “We were clay-skinned, great deformed
caterpillars”
(3rd stanza, 3rd line)

~Both the poet and Manickam were old and weak.

– “I dreamt I rose beating moth-like against the

window panes.”
(4th stanza, 3rd line)

~The poet did not want to be in the ward.

 Hyperbole
• It is one of speech that are entirely
exaggerated in order to make a point
• Examples:
– “We were clay-skinned…”(3rd stanza, 3rd line)
– “-how it stank to high heaven!”(8th stanza, 4th line)
 Moral Values
• Caring
– We should care about sick old folk and encourage
them to continue their life.
• Respect
– We should respect the dead people by to be
gentle on their body.
• Take care on our health
– We should always take good care on ourselves so
that we would not get sick easily, unlike the poet
and Manickam