Essay on ‘Electricity Comes to Cocoa Bottom’: How does the writer

portray the reactions and responses towards the revelation of light?

The poem ‘Electricity Comes to Cocoa Bottom’, written by Marcia Douglas, a
uses a variety of techniques to portray the response to the revelation of
electricity.

This poem is set in a village sort of area, which makes us realise the importance
of how the people see electricity, and this event is also happening towards the
evening just after sunset. The poem title ‘Electricity Comes to Cocoa Bottom’
sounds very much like a village name, probably somewhere in Jamaica as they
are known to grow cocoa. The poem also tells us that they are “...watching the
sun turn yellow, orange”. This makes us assume that this is happening in the
evening, as the sky is always an orange colour at sunset. The line before also
quotes, “...camped on the grass bank outside”, which shows the people’s
patience as they are waiting and expecting the arrival of electricity, and see it
as a very fascinating event in their lives because the line suggests that they
have been camped outside for a long time.

The writer uses a variety of characters to show their response to the electricity
coming to Cocoa Bottom. Firstly, she uses long sentences to show how eager
the children are to see the light. This is proved in the quote: “They camped on
the grass bank outside his house... watching the sky turn yellow, orange”. The
word ‘watching’ shows how desperate and excited they are to see the light as
they waited watching the sunset which must have felt like a long time. We can
also presume that Grannie Patterson is shy and excited when the writer says:
“...peeped through the crack”. The word ‘peeped’ emphasises that she is shy
but she still wants to see the light. Finally, the writer portrays Mr Samuel as a
God-like image which we can imagine when she says: “...a silhouette against
the yellow shimmer behind him”. This shows an image of him appearing from
light which we can easily relate to God as he is often described with an aura
behind him.

The writer uses various actions to help visualise the response to the electricity.
One example of this is in the second stanza on line 22 where it says, “...such a
fluttering of wings, tweet-a-whit, such a swaying, swaying.” The use of these
onomatopoeic phrases helps us to see how nature reacted to the light being
turned on, which was a reaction a deep excitement. Another example of how
the action helps us to see the reaction towards the light is in the third and last
stanza, where the reaction of the children is described. On line 36 it says,
“Already the children of Cocoa Bottom had lit their lamps for the dark journey
home, and it was too late – the moment had passed.” From this quotation we
can see that the children had already had already moved on after the light had
been turned on – to them electricity had already become old news.

The style of the poem includes a range of poetic devices to illustrate the
reaction towards the light. The tone of the poem progresses from a happy and
enthusiastic one to a less enthusiastic and disappointed one. It starts off happy
as the children and nature itself are excited about the revelation of electricity
which is soon short lived and turns into disappointment as the children realise
that only Mr Samuel will have the electricity and not them. The poem is in free
verse helping to emphasise words such as “Light!” on line 18. The use of
putting the word “Light!” in a word one line helps us to notice the emphasis on
the word and how big of an effect it plays to both nature and people. Marcia
Douglas also uses personification throughout the poem, one example being on
lines 28-29 where she writes, “...the long grass bent forward... like so many
bowed heads.”, which shows how even nature is praising the electricity, almost
as if it is a new deity replacing the sun. Repetition is another example of a style
used to help describe the reaction to electricity. On line 17 it says, “Closing.
Closing.”, portraying the sun setting so that the eager electricity can turn the
light on. The use of the one word sentences makes it automatically slower to
read representing the slow sunset that is happening.

In this poem, the writer uses imagery to show the reaction and response of the
nature towards the electricity. The writer shows how the nature anticipates
the arrival of electricity and how nature starts to worship the electricity, and
Mr Samuel, like a new deity. “A breeze coming home from sea held its breath”.
This shows a personification of nature, which suggests the anticipation of the
event that is yet to take place by nature. It shows that nature is excited and
freezes itself so it could watch the light turn on quietly and not interrupt the
event until after it takes place. The use of personification reinforces the
tension and anticipation the builds up within the nature.
To conclude, Marcia Douglas uses techniques such as describing the setting,
characters and actions, using a variety of language styles and using imagery to
show the responses towards the revelation of electricity.