Speaker and characters

“Mr and Mrs Xenophobia” by John Agard is rendered by a third-person speaker or lyrical I, who is not a character in the poem. The characters of the poem are Mr and Mrs Xenophobia and Dr Abdullah.

The speaker

The speaker in the poem is outside what he depicts and can be associated with a lyrical alter-ego of John Agard, the poet.

All we can infer about him is that he has a lot of knowledge regarding the characters of Mr and Mrs Xenophobia, knowing how they feel about foreigners and their health problems.

But the most important features of the speaker are his sarcasm and irony, conveyed through his tone and the humours images he conveys:

closer
to their tea cups and sauces
than to foreigners
closer
to their china
than to China. (p. 72, ll. 12-17)

Further sarcasm is conveyed when he imitates the speech of the British, which reinforces the idea that he disapproves of their arrogance and racist behaviour. Expressions like “O dearie me” (p. 72, l. 25) or “hun...