Language and style

Next, we will help you address the language and style of “London Taxi Driver” by David Dabydeen. These elements are important for understanding the poem’s tone and message and will expand your analysis.

Playing with the language

The writer plays with language in the poem through irony and figurative (metaphorical) language. For example, the “twin-tubbed buttocks of High Street Wives” (p. 126, l. 3) refers to the driver looking at women on the street in a sexual manner.

Other metaphors are “the imperial swords of Christendom” (p. 127, l. 5) which describes European colonisers by equating them to the weapons that they used to subdue the local people. The “drama of amber red and green” is a metaphor for traffic lights, suggesting that the driver reacts as aggressively towards the “drama” of the traffic lights in London as he would towards colonialism in Guyana. Another interesting metaphor is that of “discount sex” (p. 127, l. 12) which suggests that the driver pays for sex but wants to get it cheaply.

The poem is also ironical, as the Guyanese man whose people rebelled against colonisation is now rebelling against the traffic rules o...