The Butcher by Varavara Rao

The poem is a description of the violence spread on the streets of a well developed city. The support of the police that instead of curbing the violence, encourages and protects it, is a master stroke of irony prevailing in the social system. The whole poem is steeped in irony as the poem, with the advancement of the narrative, delineates a number of discrepancies pervading the socio-political system of the country. The pervasion of violence, also inkles and pervasion of beastly instincts in the human behaviour and conducts.

The speaker of the poem is a butcher who kills animals and sells the flesh. The poet paves way for ironic delineation with the cast of the speaker of the poem. In the first stanza, the speaker introduces himself as butcher and says;

I am a vendor of flesh
If you want to call me a butcher
Then that is as you wish
I kill animals daily
I cut their flesh and sell it
Blood to me is a familiar sight

In these lines the speaker makes room for the surprise of the coming lines as he admits that ‘blood to,’ him, ‘is a familiar sight.’ The forthcoming experience is also manifest is the second line of the poem when the speaker addresses the readers and say ‘if,’ they. ‘want to call’ him ‘a butcher then that is as’ they ‘wish.’ The speaker is optimistic that probably after reading the poem, the reader would not call him a butcher.

The speaker of the poem, after this self introductory stanza, moves up the incident around which the poem is structured. The speaker also structures a system of parallels and contrasts that aptly illustrates the central ideal of the poem.


But
It was on that day that I saw
The real meaning of being a butcher,
That young boy blood congealed
In the fear that had gathered in my eyes
His voice went dumb
With the words that would not leave my lips

The speaker of the poem, who is a butcher by profession, now, illustrates the real meaning of being a butcher. The sight of ‘that young boy blood congealed in the fear, works out the recreation of the meaning the word ‘butcher.’ The speechlessness of the young boy ratifies the strangulating effect of fear endured by the young boy trapped in violence. The death of the young boy makes the speaker ironically conscious of his own identity along social dimensions of the locale of the action. As a consequence the speaker realizes the ‘real meaning of being a butcher.’ The indifference and brutality of witnessed by the speaker make him confess that ‘never has the blood touched’ his ‘heart.’ He further admits that on that day ‘the blood spilled not on the street but on’ his ‘heart.’ He, in a fit of impulse, turns to the readers and asks:




Who among you will extend
A humane hand
And unburden my heart
Of the weight of that horrendous sight?

The poem takes overtly political meaning when the speaker refers to the ‘butt of the rifle’ and the oblique reference to false allegation of ‘attacking with a knife.’ The speaker further highlights the contrast by referring to himself and says;

I too kill animals
But I have never hated them,
I do sell flesh
But never and to none have
I sold myself

The pervasion of fear result into the infusion of surrealistic images into the description. The speaker, shares the company with the by standers and observes that ‘the thousand watching eyes are tearful.’ The speaker further observes that ‘his own eyes are dry.’ The comparison of the young victim with the goat, further highlight the contrast that subsists between two different forms of cruelty.


Unlike the goat under my knife
He does not shout `Ba ba⦮bsp;
He appears to be looking into tomorrow.

The succeeding stanza emancipates the brutal murder from the possibility of any personal cause and establishes a political origin of the brutal activity. The speaker is little confused, if it was yesterday or the day before yesterday and he claims that ‘you can not drive that memory from’ him ‘as long as there is breathe in’ his ‘body.’ He further ratifies the analogue between two different forms of cruelty and says;


O, brothers and sisters
We do not kill even a snake like that.
I, who kill goats daily, understood that day
The cruelty that combines and conspires
To take a life

In the succeeding lines the speaker makes it clear that he cruelty attributed to him is not the cruelty witnessed by him on the street. He makes his stand clear by revealing his aims and remains uncertain about the motif of the brutal killing of the young boy.



I am a vendor of flesh
Yes, I am a butcher
The meat of sheep and meat of goats
I sell for a living

The last stanza of the poem makes the idea more clear by referring to various sections of the system and supporting and encouraging the brutal killing of the innocent persons.
That minister himself
Gives to policemen
Prizes and promotions
Medals and weighty purses
For the taking of human lives

The transformation of the meaning and experience takes place when the speaker of the poem realizes that he is not the butcher but the butcher is the state. The butcher further confides:

That the minister means the government
That the police are our guardians
Whose government it is and
Whose guardians they are
The life of that boy
Fleeing into eternity
Told me
I realized then that
The real butcher is
The state

This last stanza of the poem makes clear the ultimate experience of the speaker of the poet and highlights the bare truth about the state.

The poem is written in free verse and doest not follow a conventional rhyme pattern but there is a rhythmic grown in the thought content that impress us of the latent rhythm not manifest in the rhyme pattern. Irony is obviously the most scintillating aspect of the technical frame work of the poem which is set into being in the first stanza and it grows with the system if parallels and contrasts. The dramatic element is another very conspicuous technical manipulation of the poet. He renders and situation to the theme and designs the character accordingly. The speaker who is a butcher, is obviously the most outstanding creation that involves the dramatic motif. The poem appears to be a part of the dialogue between two characters of a play. However the other role can be assigned to the reader.