Most figures of speech shed a picture in a reader’s mind. These pictures created or suggested by the poet are called 'images'. To participate fully in the world of poem, a reader must understand how the poet uses imagery to convey more than what is actually said or literally meant.The poems discussed in this thesis, Naturally and Factory Town, employ vivid imagery to intensify the theme, which is the harsh condition of workers.
To be able to understand clearly, the two poems should be analyzed individually.
In Naturally, the persona of the poem is a rich man, as suggested by several lines in the poem including lines 9, “And I ride the Benz...” and line 19 “a quickquick highhigh lifelife.” This persona admits his wrongdoings against the workers, as he says in the first line how he “fears the workers” and later on describes why he does.
The first stanza mentions how these people “writhe in bristling grass and wormy mud: out with dawn, back with dusk; Depart with seed, and return with fat-busting fruit.” This describes the environment of the workers.
In the second stanza, a clearer description of the labor the workers carry out comes to play. Here it is shown how they labor even if they are experiencing “head-splitting noise and threatening saws” at “boiling point” and how they depend on “slimy cassava” and “age-rusty water taps” for energy.
In the third stanza, the workers manufacture a car, a Benz, as the persona rides on it with style, “festooned with striped tags and python copper coiling monsters.” The workers are seen to be clapping, which is a sign of fulfillment resulted by the manufactured car, but with “blistered hands.” This explains the toil they have done and how it affected their physical condition.
The fourth stanza gives a take on the workers’ shelter. Their “hives” are made out of “broken bones of fallen mates.” This line signifies that their refuge was probably passed on to them by their predecessors, who were probably also workers, their “mates.”The persona then “drones” in these “hives” and turns them into state-houses, colleges, and makes them official.
These four stanzas and the first two lines of the last stanza include the persona’s reaction towards these, how he “eats the fruit,” “rides in the Benz,” and even “whores their daughters.” A clear image of how he admits his actions.
The last stanza is where the reader sees the reason for the persona’s actions. He desires to have a “quickquick highhigh lifelife,” a life that is the exact opposite of the life of the workers, to “break the bond” between him and these people. All the actions mentioned now make sense because of this statement, he “fears” the workers because he knows what they are capable of.
Factory Town, similar to the first poem, also deals with the harsh conditions a worker faces. In lines 1-9, workers from a factory were “vomited” from their job, suggesting that they were probably expelled or not wanted anymore. The next lines showed imagery on how the workers felt after, “their feet whispered wearily,” “reaching for love.” Then in the next four lines, the workers are “in defiance of their fragmentary careers…with heavy hearts.” This could mean that they did not know what to do any more since they lost their jobs. In their hearts, they resist having incomplete careers.
Then, Bulosan gives a flashback of sorts in lines 14-25 as he states “the longest years of their (the workers’) lives,” the years when they were still working. Line 18 mentions that the workers, after the “whistle of four o’clock,” went “home heavy with fatigue and hunger and love.” This statement alone transpires as if the workers were treated like slaves, and they wanted to go home badly. Lines 23 to 24 adds more brutality to this, by using words like “serpent-like whip,” “bleeding,” “disease,” and “death.”
The remaing part of Factory Town shifts back to the present, showing perhaps new workers, the young man with “hands unsteady with nervousness,” and “the lengthening line of voiceless men.” Their future is somehow foretold in the last line, saying they “will never be men again,” possibly suggesting that these men would also be treated cruelly.
The descriptions mentioned in the two poems clearly represent the workers’ situation, be it physically and emotionally.
In the two poems, the environment is described intensely, with words referring to brutality or pain. An example of this would be in the poem Naturally, where the workers “writhe” in grass. The word “writhe” per se is a very negative connotation as it literally means to twist, as in pain. And to describe twisting in pain in an environment as gentle in people’s mind as grass would truly be saying a lot.
Another case is how the authors describe the physical well-being of the workers. In Factory Town, it was revealed how the workers would go home “heavy with fatigue.” This gives a hint of how these people were treated. But the more interesting thing is it was immediately followed by statements like “blocked the skies,” “black smokes,” and “serpent-like whip of life within bleeding, scarred with disease and death.” These images solidified the assumption that indeed, the workers were ill-treated.
But most importantly, the imagery found in the two poems create a view of how the workers are inferior in the society. In Bulosan’s poem, chimneys of the factory were described to be “gigantic,” which connotes power and superiority, while the men were said to be “voiceless,” which connotes weakness and inferiority.In Bukenya’s poem, the persona describes himself as a “drone,” which is a male bee which does not make honey in the workers’ “hives.” This presents a meaning that the persona is superior, and all the other workers in the “hives,” have to work for him.
The various images mentioned above clearly merge all the parts of the poem together and create a certain vibe of darkness, which is a direct representation of how the workers are treated in Naturally and Factory Town. With the theme intensified in the two poems, it is safe to say that without the various images found in them, all elements that constitute the poems would not be entirely effective.
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