What Life is Really Like by Beverly Rycroft (Grade 12 NSC Matric English FAL): Revision Notes
What Life is Really Like by Beverly Rycroft
About the poet
Beverly Rycroft was born in the Eastern Cape and became a qualified teacher at the University of Cape Town. She later studied at the University of the Witwatersrand and worked as a teacher before turning to writing full-time. Her poetry collection "Missing" won the Ingrid Jonker Award in 2013, and she received the Thomas Springer Prize for best poem in a journal in 1997.
A significant influence on her poetry was her diagnosis with stage 3 breast cancer. The themes of mortality, illness, and hope for recovery appear throughout her work, including in this poem. Her personal experiences with facing death and medical treatment deeply shaped her perspective on life's complexities.
Poem structure and form
"What Life is Really Like" is a lyrical poem written in free verse, meaning it has no set rhyme scheme. Instead, Rycroft uses various poetic techniques to create rhythm and structure. The poem consists of eight stanzas with 43 lines total, with irregular stanza lengths that reflect the unpredictability and disorder of life itself.
Key Structural Features:
- First person narrative - the speaker tells her own story
- Enjambment - sentences flow beyond line endings, creating natural speech patterns
- Italics for emphasis on important words and the father's direct speech
- Irregular stanza lengths mirror life's unpredictable nature
Major themes
Theme 1: Cruelty and harsh realities
The father believes in preparing his daughter for life's difficulties by exposing her to harsh experiences. He forces her to witness the beheading of chickens and help stitch up an injured pigeon. His philosophy is that life involves suffering, and she must be prepared to face it.
Key quote: "you need to toughen up" - the father's repeated message
Theme 2: Fate and vulnerability
The poem explores how fate can strike anyone at any time, regardless of preparation. The daughter waits for years expecting harsh events, described as being like prey waiting for a predator to attack. When illness finally comes, it's beyond what any preparation could have helped with.
Theme 3: Illness and mortality
Rycroft reflects on her cancer diagnosis and treatment, showing how facing death changes perspective. The poem contrasts the father's attempts to prepare her for life's cruelties with the reality of serious illness, which requires gentleness and care rather than toughness.
Key literary techniques
Metaphor and imagery
Worked Example: The Pigeon Metaphor
The injured pigeon represents multiple layers of meaning:
- Literal level: An actual injured bird needing medical care
- Symbolic level: The daughter's vulnerability and need for care
- Thematic level: How life can suddenly wound us
- Relationship level: The father's role in both causing pain (through harsh lessons) and providing healing
The bird of prey metaphor (lines 30-32) compares the father's toughness to a predatory bird circling above, emphasising how intimidating his approach was.
The bulldozer metaphor (line 38) describes the impact of surgery, showing the violent, destructive nature of medical treatment on the body.
Personification
The pigeon is given human qualities - it's "mad with Terror" and seeks refuge. This makes the reader feel greater empathy for both the bird and the daughter's situation.
Tone shifts
The poem's tone changes dramatically:
- Stanza 1: Serious, cautionary (father's warnings)
- Middle stanzas: Anxious, fearful (waiting for fate to strike)
- Final stanzas: Gentle, caring (father's changed approach during illness)
Use of italics
Italics highlight the father's direct words and emphasise key concepts like "really" in the title. This technique draws attention to important ideas and shows the contrast between the father's harsh words and his later gentle actions.
Father-daughter relationship
The poem reveals a complex relationship that evolves throughout:
Early relationship: The father acts as a stern teacher, believing his daughter needs to experience life's cruelties firsthand. He uses anecdotes (short real-life stories) to teach harsh lessons about survival.
Changed relationship: When the daughter faces real illness, the father becomes gentle and caring. He dresses her wounds "silently" in contrast to his earlier loud and insensitive behaviour. This shows he has learned that sometimes protection and tenderness are more important than toughness.
The Central Irony: Despite all his harsh preparation, it was ultimately his own gentle care that helped her most during her time of greatest need. This reveals the poem's key message about what truly matters in life's difficult moments.
Key imagery and symbols
Medical imagery
- "stitched its grey rotor throat" - surgical language for the pigeon's treatment
- "bulldozed chest" - violent imagery for mastectomy surgery
- "dressing my wound" - gentle medical care
Animal imagery
- Chickens being beheaded - sudden, violent death
- Pigeon seeking refuge - vulnerability and need for safety
- Bird of prey circling - predatory threat and intimidation
Contrasts
The poem uses contrast effectively to show change:
- Loud, angry stitching of the pigeon vs. silent, gentle wound dressing
- Father's harsh voice vs. his quiet breathing
- Preparation for cruelty vs. need for compassion
Language and style
Rycroft uses colloquial language (everyday speech) mixed with more formal poetic language. The father's words include slang and informal expressions, making him seem real and authentic.
Repetition of key phrases like "waited and waited" emphasises the prolonged anxiety of expecting life's harsh blows.
Enjambment creates a flowing, conversational tone that mirrors natural speech patterns and thoughts.
Key Points to Remember:
- Beverly Rycroft draws on her personal experience with cancer to explore how we prepare for and face life's difficulties
- The poem uses free verse structure with irregular stanza lengths to reflect life's unpredictability
- Three main themes: cruelty (harsh preparation for life), fate (vulnerability to unexpected events), and illness/mortality (facing death and needing care)
- The father-daughter relationship evolves from harsh teaching to gentle caring when real crisis strikes
- Key metaphors include the injured pigeon (vulnerability), bird of prey (intimidating toughness), and bulldozer (destructive medical treatment)
- The poem's central irony lies in how the father's gentleness during illness proves more valuable than his harsh preparation methods