Captive by Francis Carey Slater

About the Poet

• Francis Carey Slater (1876-1958) was born in Alice, Eastern Cape.
• Grew up on farms and learned to speak Xhosa.
• Educated at Lovedale in Alice.
• Wrote in English but aimed to Africanise South African English poetry.
• His work reflects the South African experience.

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Summary of the Poem

• 'Captive' is a free verse monologue.

• Criticises migrant labour: workers are forced to leave their rural homes for jobs in the city.

• The speaker, a mine labourer, is hospitalised due to tuberculosis (TB), contracted in unhealthy mine conditions.

  

• Expresses entrapment—physically by illness and contract, emotionally by longing for home.

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Type and Form

• Free verse with no set rhyme scheme.
• Three stanzas:
  • Stanza 1: 10 lines
  • Stanza 2: 12 lines
  • Stanza 3: 10 lines
• The poem is a lament, expressing grief and hopelessness.

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Analysis

Title

• Highlights the speaker's trapped state:
  • In illness (hospital).
  • In migrant labour (working far from home).

Lines 1-10

• The speaker is in hospital, suffering from fever.
• Feels like a trapped bird ('tethered in the toils of fever').

Lines 6-8

• Describes the unclean hospital ward.
• Flies hitting the window symbolise false freedom—they see outside but cannot escape.

Lines 9-10

• Imagines his home with nostalgia.
• Uses metaphor: 'My home—brightest tooth in the jaws of distance' (home is precious but far away).

Lines 11-22

• Focus shifts to memories of home:
  • Cows feeding in the valley.
  • Children playing, creating toys from moist clay.

Lines 23-32

• Reality returns—he is still in hospital, trapped by illness and fever.
• Continues listening to the flies buzzing.

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Themes

Nostalgia (Longing for the Past)

• Misses home, familiar routines, and village life.
• Memories bring comfort but also sadness.

Freedom vs. Captivity

• Hospital room = prison.
• Migrant labour contract traps him—he cannot return home until he completes his work.
• Compares himself to a trapped bird and flies hitting the glass (both symbolise lack of freedom).
• Wants to escape illness and labour system.

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Diction and Figurative Language

Metaphor

• 'Brightest tooth in the jaws of distance' – home is precious but far away.
• 'Lion's thunder' & 'lightning leopard' – home is powerful, compared to a storm.

Symbolism

• Bird in a trap – the speaker's lack of freedom.
• Flies hitting the window – illusion of freedom but real entrapment.

Alliteration

• 'Tethered in the toils of fever' – emphasises his struggle.

Onomatopoeia

• 'Buzzing' (lines 5, 31) – mimics the sound of flies.

Repetition

• 'Deceiving window-panes' – appears in first and last stanza to show false hope.

Simile

• 'As a wild bird caught in a slip-knot snare' – trapped like a bird in a snare.
• 'Their swinging hoes are like the glitter of sunshine on water' – describes hoe movement.

Personification

• 'Their lazy shadows… on the grasses' – shadows appear to drink sunlight.

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Tone and Mood

Tone

• Nostalgic – reflects on the past with longing.
• Regretful – realises he is far from home.

Mood

• Melancholic and trapped – due to illness and separation from home.
• Hopeful – memories of home bring brief happiness.

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