Municipal Gum Essay
English Final
Ethan Marais
Thesis
The poem Municipal Gum by Oodgeroo Noonuccal displays the idea of loss and urbanisation of their land, poetic devices such as personification and similes are used to engage the reader and make examples of the suffering her people faced. For Indigenous Australians, the pain of losing their country and culture is often expressed through poetry and songs. In Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s Municipal Gum, the idea of urbanisation is delivered through the use of Similes and Personification.
Personification
The tree in the poem has human-like qualities. The quote: “Hard bitumen around your feet”. The quote is trying to give the message that the land has been built over the land and it is not like it was before. The tree represents what is left of their land and tradition, the concrete represents modernisation that the English brought with them. Personification is a powerful tool used by writers to help the reader understand what is being said. Since the invasion of Europeans in 1788, Indigenous Australians have struggled with displacement and loss of identity. This sentiment is fully examined in Municipal Gum presenting the view that all their traditions and culture have just faded away.
Simile
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The tree is meant to stand out from everything else and is disregarded by society. In the line “Oh fellow citizen, what have they done to us” it represents what the Indigenous people have had to go through and what pain the English brought with them. Similes are a powerful tool used by writers, they are used in communication as they help to create vivid and memorable descriptions by drawing comparisons between things that may not be inherently
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