Answer man

By Samyak Dhole

Tree River Earth Air

: where were you when my leaves got dried? : where were you when my fishes were killed? : where were you when my soil got eroded? : where were you when my ozone got depleted?

Answer man is made to reveal a real condition of nature today. We could know that this poem is published in the later years. Then as we know that today, nature is not as good as like in the past. The portrayal of nature condition is revealed in every stanza of the poem with questioning a man. The first stanza, Tree: where were you when my leaves got dried?, there is an implied intent, the author just uses the word leaves as the fact of condition of nature, but the author means all aspect of tree and even forest. Human has continuously cut the trees without responsibility and awareness to secure it. So, through this poem the author gives question to a man and his try to awaked people toward the environment. The second stanza, River : where were you when my fishes were killed?. River, where people can catch fishes, and even they can use the river as water public transportation and also it used to irrigation. But people, had polluted the river and killed the fishes wildly, they use dynamite and chemical to catch fishes, therefore the water had polluted and people do not aware about it. And it causes the damages of ecosystem. The third stanza, Earth: where were you when my soil got eroded?. Earth, that we live on, had damaged. People have established buildings anywhere, and even they carried out their industrial works without knowing the impact that can be on it, they cut trees and to their business so that it causes the soil eroded. The author wants to make people are aware to secure the earth through this stanza of Answer Man poem. The last stanza,, Air: where were you when my ozone got depleted?. Air, which people breathe for, but they had polluted the air itself. It might come from many different sources such as factories, power plants, dry cleaners, cars, buses, trucks, and even windblown dust and wildfires, so that air pollution can threaten the peoples health, trees, crops and animal, as well as damage the ozone layer, and it causes global warning. However, people do not aware about it and they continuously damage the air. In brief, the poem is about environment and containing a message for people so as to they more aware toward environment and they also supposed to secure the nature.

Samyak Dholes Answer Man is a simple poem. The author uses a simple language to convey his ideas to describe a real condition of the nature, including critical environment to human beings. They had used so many elements of the nature for their life, such as, trees to construct a house or others building and it also used to make a paper and furniture. So this poem also called a realism poem. This poem uses a kind of dramatic poetry, because the poem presents the voice of an imaginary character or characters speaking directly, without any additional narration by the author. A dramatic poem according to T.S. Eliot, does not consist of what the poet would say in his own person, but only what lie can say within the limits of one imaginary character addressing another imaginary character, so that, in answer Man the author uses four elements of the nature such as, tree, river, earth, and air as the speaker or persona in this poem and its strictly speaking to another imaginary character, man. There is an irony in Answer Man poem; it is a title with whole of the poem is not coherent. The title is a phrase Answer Man, that the reader might consider the poem is about a man or everything that is related with man, but, when the readers read the whole of the poem, they will find that the poem is not describe about man but it is reveal about critical environment upon human. And the persona in this poem are elements of nature that speaking or asking to a man. And the author chose word man to symbolize the whole people. Answer man poem also uses a personification, tree, river, earth, and air are given human characteristic such as able to talk and ask. Then the rhyme scheme contributes to the poems leading of audience toward couplet of ending en and ed sound.

Mohammad Qushoy