Beware Soul Brother

“Beware Soul Brother” is vague in its identification of the audience and the threat the audience must be aware of, but the language and the culture the poem speaks to is specific to the Igbo people. Because of this, the poem works well as a celebration of culture and as an advocation to hold on to tradition.

The poem opens with the metaphor of the dance, which Achebe uses to describe life. This metaphor is important for the Igbo people as traditional dances and music hold great importance in Igbo culture. As Achebe discusses in Things Fall Apart, dances and music are associated with religious festivals and events, giving these arts a spiritual quality. By immediately identifying his people as “men of soul” (Line 1), Achebe is attributing a sense of spiritual mysticism to his culture, giving it a weight of significance. This also sets up the struggle of his people in familiar Western religious terms, as these “men of soul” suffer in the face of oppression, just as early Christians suffered in Rome. Achebe clearly makes this connection later in this section when he says the suffering his people have known would make “the Cross” (Line 7) bearable.