Critical Analysis on With No Immediate Cause
“With No Immediate Cause” - Critical Analysis
“With No Immediate Cause” has an underlying meaning in anger. This title is used to grab the reader and to imply that the subject matter is not important. After reading, the reader’s interpretation changes completely and the reverse is true. Her point is that the situation women are in is of the utmost importance and should be handled with immediate attention.
The speaker of this poem is the Ntozake Shange. She is talking about the abuse that women face daily, which she notices, but usually goes unnoticed by others. In the first part she is telling about what the man next to her could have done and that she can not push what might have happened out of her mind. She then proceeds to inform her audience of her expectation for the announcement of a woman’s death in the obituary section of the newspaper and that it makes her sick to her stomach with the thoughts of how she died. She ends the poem with a series of questions that she wants the public to answer. This is a very serious and solemn piece of writing. Shange wished to inform the reader of how imperative abusive attacks on women are and shares her feelings in persuasive hope that we will see how important this issue is in today’s society.
There are many literary things about this piece. First of all repetition is used very frequently. The essence of time is very important in this sample of writing. “Every three minutes,” or any other form of time constraint, is used to make the reader aware of how often these events happen. It is a very successful tactic to use when striving to get a point across to a reader. There are several lines that are colloquial that benefits the reader by using a simple manner in getting the point across; she also uses concrete details to convince the reader of the importance of having an understanding of how often women are abused. This persuasive mode of writing uses the technique of syllogism to prove her point.
I believe that the theme of this poem is that you should be aware of what is going on around you and not avoid it. Events occur daily which come and go; they may not seem...