Question

Identify evidence in “The child is not dead” that reveals the source of Ingrid Jonker’s inspiration for the poem. Explain how the poem was inspired by actual events in South Africa during apartheid.

Answer 1

Much of the poem was inspired when Jonkers witnesses a shattering event: a Black baby was shot in his mother’s arms. And she wrote: "Die kind (wat doodgeskiet is deur soldate by Nyanga)", "The child (who was shot dead by soldiers at Nyanga"). It happened in the aftermath of the massacre of 69 people in Sharpeville, south of Johannesburg, in March 1960. They were marching to the police station to protest against having to carry passbooks. Writing in Drum magazine about the poem, Jonker said: “I saw the mother as every mother in the world. I saw her as myself. I saw Simone [Jonker’s own child] as the baby. I could not sleep. I thought of what the child might have been had he been allowed to live. I thought what could be reached, what could be gained by death? The child wanted no part in the circumstances in which our country is grasped… He only wanted to play in the sun at Nyanga… [The poem] grew out of my sense of bereavement.”

Explanation: This is what I put together, hopefully it helps

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Answer 2

Much of it was inspired by the war in Vietnam and much of it took the form. The light shining from South Africa has finally reached the northern part of the is it possible that the events of 12 February and thereafter happened due to the read Ingrid Jonker's 'The Child is not Dead' in all our nations seeing that as it is.