Die Wereld Het So Klein Geword

Stanza 1:
1. The speaker's grandma (& her generation) play outside, read books for information & talk to friends on a landline
  1. Poem begins with "toe" (when); often used to start a story
    1. Prepares reader for narrative nature of poem
  2. Poem tells us about 3 different generations of women in a family (grandma, mom & daughter - speaker)
  3. "My" indicates 1st-person speaker
  4. Speaker's grandma lived on a farm, played outside with her friends, shared pomegranates in the orchard, read books & talked to friends on the landline.
    1. Long 'ee' sounds ("speel", "deel" & "lees") & 2 long verse lines in stanza 1 slow down tempo
      1. Creates sense of peacefulness of farm life
  5. Stanza 1 is shortest stanza; showing simplicity of farm life
Stanza 2:
1. As a child, the speaker's mom lives on a large plot, watches TV & dreams of travelling the world. She knows people who've gone oversees, her cousins in the city see movies & in matric she sees the first cellphone
  1. Living space changes from open plains of farm to spacious plot of mom's childhood house
    1. Mom lives in a town, not a farm like her mom
  2. The mom sits in front of the TV & doesn't play outside like her mom did
    1. The TV makes the mom dream of travelling the world
      1. She knows people who've gone oversees, which strengthens this dream
      2. "wye wereld te swerf" (alliteration) emphasizes wide open lands to explore
        Comparison with world wide web (more alliteration)
  3. Watching movies in cinema is popular
  4. She sees the first cellphone before she's in matric
  5. Stanza 2 is longer & more cramped than 1
    1. Suggests world's becoming more complex (in terms of technology) & world is becoming smaller
Stanza 3:
1. The speaker had access to the internet & can bring the outside world into her house. She uses Facebook to keep in contact with people & the internet to get information. Her 'world' is bigger than her mom's & grandma's, even though it can fit into her small room.
  1. The living space changes to the speaker's room in present time
    1. No spacious plot or wide open plains - no real garden
      1. Her space is physically smaller (like how the world's become smaller)
  2. With technology the speaker can bring the world into her room
    1. "web" (internet) used as metaphor like the farmland for her grandma
    2. Gumtree's a metaphor for a tree she'd play under outside
  3. The people who the speaker socializes with on facebook partly hide their identities
  4. Contrast between "klets" (chat - sound) & "klankloos" (toneless - silence)
    1. The grandma 'chatted' with friends on the phone, but the speaker chats with friends online
  5. "GROOT" is capitalized to show huge possibilities of the internet
    1. Increases contrast with 'small'
  6. Central idea of poem in closing lines
    1. 'The world's become so small it can fit into the speaker's small room'
  7. Last 4 lines become smaller & smaller
    1. Typographically illustrate the speaker's small surroundings
    2. Short lines & enjambment speed up tempo
      1. Also create contrast with long lines & slow tempo of 1st stanza
        Represents 2 different types of existence (spacious & cramped, slow & fast, big & small)
2. Longest stanza, suggesting overflow of information with technology
Shows the world as a global community
The world has become smaller because of the internet & social media
1. The speaker can access any information with a click of her mouse & can interact with people all over the world

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Die Wereld Het So Klein Geword

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	Created by field.sophie about 10 years ago