Metaphor and Grace in Antjie Krog's Country of Grief

Introduction: Existential Crisis and the Power of Metaphor

Antjie Krog (2000) uses metaphor and extended metaphor throughout the poem Country of Grief and Grace — itself an exploration of existential crisis in South Africa, ravaged by apartheid and violence. Krog descends into this maelstrom to provide the reader a glimpse, a hope, a ray of light that beams through the sludge of hopelessness, despair, and grief. Through her use of metaphor and extended metaphor, Krog constructs an alternate way of looking at the world in which she lives — a framework that invites the reader to question the borders and boundaries of time and space that keep separate the past and the future, the young and the old, the black and the white. By merging and synthesizing the elements of her country into a cohesive whole, Krog shows that all is one — and in this revelation lies the seed of peace, the germ of life. Moreover, by constructing metaphors out of the poem's own language, Krog speaks metaphorically of the war waged in her homeland as a type of battle between two entities, entwined like lovers fighting to separate even as they cling to one another.

The Unnamed 'It': Conflict, Voice, and the Dead Past

The first vague reference to the subject of the poem — "it" — cited twice in the opening stanza — names something negative that keeps two characters apart. It is "between" them but is unnamed. The pronoun is used almost mythically, in the same manner as the great cosmic force that the Hebrews recognized as God but dared not name (thus they referred to the force as I AM WHO AM) (McCarthy, 1978). Yet instead of being recognized as a positive entity, the force between the two characters is characterized as painful and fraught: "how desperately it aches between you and me." A wail of grievances follows, with the narrator taking on the persona of the Psalmist, bemoaning the effects of "it" — "destruction," the suffering that attends the pursuit of "truth," the scarcity of energy that remains, making mere "survival" a difficult task — let alone the acknowledgment of any kind of truth. Thus, in the opening stanzas, the poet makes plain that "it" is a conflict waged for higher ground — a war that has brought combatants into its field and watched them fight one another for a higher claim while their vital resources are depleted and drained.

Another mythical reference is alluded to in the verb "slung" — the sling of David, used against the giant adversary Goliath. Here in the poem, however, the weapon is not a stone but a "voice." Angry words — the sounds breathed from one's lungs and shaped by the mouth — are used as a metaphor for weapons, fired from the sling directly into the adversary, now recognized as the two characters' shared past.

That past is described like a corpse — "the solid cold length of our past" — laid out flat upon a slab at the morgue. The metaphorical device of death now establishes the poem's essential motif: the life that the two characters once shared is dead. Yet the metaphor of death also sets up the hope for rebirth, for resurrection, for life springing phoenix-like from the ashes. The means of this renewal is the same channel that robbed the two of vitality — the "voice." Krog yields up another plaintive cry: "how long does it take for a voice to reach another?" The metaphor is extended and taken in an unexpected direction, offering a variety of possible interpretations: a voice — like a bullet fired from a rifle or a stone hurled from a sling — must travel over space and time to arrive at its destination. Does it move quickly or slowly? Does it stop and take detours? Can it be caught and considered at a later time? Or does it come like a salve, healing the wounded with words of warmth and kindness? The poet does not yet say — later she will embark upon a search for the Christian concept of forgiveness, as Vosloo (2012) notes — for now she only asks how long it takes to come "in this country held bleeding between us." At this point it becomes clear what the two are fighting over: their country. The metaphorical combat is extended to include the metaphor of the homeland, torn apart and bleeding yet remaining in one piece between the two, acting as a glue — a fixative that also keeps them bound to one another.

Wounds, Baptism, and the Metaphor of Transcendence

The poem's second part introduces a new metaphor that again draws on biblical language to enrich its meaning: "in the beginning is seeing" — a reference to the Word described in John's Gospel. Fisher (1985) defines such a construction as a "narrative paradigm" used to create a thematically cohesive expression of ideas (p. 74). In Krog's poem, the paradigm shifts from the warring relationship of the two entities in the first part to a mystical expression of the sin and grace that exists within the "wounds of anger" (Krog, 2000). The metaphor employed here is one in which the wounds suffered by the two parties and by the country contain both the whole of the past and the seeds of hope. By entering into the wounds and looking with the eyes — "seeing," as Krog puts it — and listening with the ears to the "voices" that speak from within those wounds on behalf of the whole country, reflection becomes possible, and out of reflection can come a new peace.

The concept of baptism by blood — baptism into a community — intertwines the concepts introduced in the first part of the poem: words, violence, and unity. The voices of the country are literally "baptized in syllables of blood and belonging" — a metaphorical way of saying that the violence and fighting are not outwardly directed but inwardly directed. The fighters are only destroying themselves in their attempts to destroy one another. The more they spill one another's blood, the more they stake their eternities to one another. Krog alludes to "angel hair and barbs / dew and hay and hurt" — symbols that reference the ethereal, spiritual realm alongside the earthy, physical realm.

Thus, the second part of the poem constitutes an extended metaphor in which the wounds of the country serve as a means of transcendence — a way for everyone to pause, reflect, and bring together the physical and spiritual dimensions of their humanity. The juxtaposition of symbols — "angel hair and barbs / dew and hay and hurt" — hints at the Incarnation, replacing the Word that is "in the beginning" with the act of seeing. The "hay" is where the Word made Incarnate is laid — the food of animals made into a bed for the Lord (Sumner, 2013). Like a saint in a religious icon, Krog points the finger not at the opponent but upward toward the divine.

The third part of the poem begins with the narrator "speechless" as she awaits the coming of words. The metaphor of the Word — the Incarnate Son of God who brings redemption, healing, and forgiveness — is still not yet at hand. Instead, "hell" surrounds the narrator, who lives in a "soundless space" — a metaphor for desolation, where no voices are heard and no human souls are healed. The poet is thus prompted to grieve: "what the hell does one do / with this load of decrowned skeletons origins shame and ash." She has no recourse but to continue as "we carry death" into the fourth part of the poem.

Conclusion: Metaphor as a Path to National Healing

Antjie Krog's (2000) Country of Grief and Grace uses metaphor to describe the situation of her homeland — how hatred, anger, racism, apartheid, and violence have torn the people away from and against one another, even though in reality they are all brothers and sisters of the same land and soil. The metaphors that Krog constructs and extends depict the country's past as a corpse, the individuals at war as victims of Death — who feeds on them like an inflamed, passionate, false lover — while the one true divine source of peace, love, and mercy waits with its redeeming words to reignite the soul and give it the grace needed to heal the wounds of so many generations of violence.

References

Fisher, W. (1985). The narrative paradigm: In the beginning. Journal of Communication, 35(4): 74–89.

Krog, A. (2000). Down to my last skin: Poems. South Africa: Random House.

McCarthy, D. (1978). Exod 3:14: History, philology and theology. The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 40(3): 311–322.

Sasson, V. (1989). King Solomon and the dark lady in the Song of Songs. Vetus Testamentum, 39(4): 407–414.

Sumner, D. (2013). The twofold life of the Word: Karl Barth's critical reception of the Extra Calvinisticum. International Journal of Systematic Theology, 15(1): 42–57.

Vosloo, R. (2012). Traumatic memory, representation and forgiveness: Some remarks in conversation with Antjie Krog's Country of My Skull. In die Skriflig/In Luce Verbi, 46(1): 53–60.

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