Essay 3 "America, America"

Pedro G. González Seda

Prof. Leonardo Flores

English 3202/01A

June 26, 2008

“America, America”

“God save America, My home, sweet home!” with these words Saadi Youssef the author of this poem introduces the readers to familiarize with the situation that the poem presents. Mr. Youssef is an Iraqi citizen who opposed both Saddam Hussein regimen and the constant attacks made by the United States of America to control Iraqi’s lands. The form to express his opposition to these situations is by using his poetic ability to communicate his arguments against these conflicts. This poem intention is to expose the armed conflicts between United States and Iraq, where many lives and blood has been poured. To prove this interpretation of the poem I will analyze the uses of connotations, repetitions of words and the use of the personification.

The uses of connotations in this poem have a crucial role to understand what the author wants to communicate us. In the first stanza we have the following words “God soldiers” vs. “Soldiers” that represents the vulnerability of the human being (the American troops) against the divine. In other words the only ones that are invincible and unbeatable are the God soldiers, better known as Angels. Another important connotation is when the author uses the word hungry to describe his God. We already know that a god don’t have the need for food, so the word hungry maybe refers to a need for justice, peace, freedom or represents the status of his sons, that are suffering with this armed conflict. The last connotation of this poem is at the end of the second stanza and refers to the desperate need of ending this conflict between both powers (Saddam regimen vs. America), because is destroying innocent humans lives. With this connotations the author is giving us a clearly view of the terrible living conditions of the Iraqis society.

Another important part of the analysis of this poem is the repetition of words like “gods”, “soldiers”, and “drowned”, because they give us an indication of the most relevant ideas that the author wants to communicate. When he uses the word “gods” he is referring to the diversity of gods that exist in his culture. On the other hand when he summons his gods in the poem is to illustrate an ambient of suffering, negative energies, and to indicate that they have bad fortune. We already discuss the word “soldiers” in the last paragraph, but the part that have not been analyze is the frequent use of this word that represents the oppression to Iraqi’s people from the militia of the United States of America. The word “drowned” is used frequently by the author to indicate the psychological state and the way the Iraqi’s nation feel. They feel drowned, because all the things that they frequently saw and lived were related with death and the agony produced by this “war”.

The third factor to be analyzed is the implementation of the personification in this poem. In the second stanza the author uses the word “lady” to give life to America. The importance of giving life to this powerful nation is to remember some internal and universal values like compassion, peace, goodness and right of LIBERTY that is the one of the greatest symbols and trademark of U.S.

“Let the water come” said Youssef to America and the readers to remember that always exist hope and nothing last forever. Water is a universal symbol of life, that is the most valuable thing in a person life and with this in the Iraqi’s side they can find their liberty from their oppressors.