Analyzing Metaphors Hidden Within Boey Kim Cheng's 'The Planners' Ayaleem Tuken Tegi 11th Grade

‘The Planners’, written by Boey Kim Cheng, focuses on the animosity of various individuals responsible for the industrialisation of land in Singapore. Due to the ontogenesis, Cheng illusifies the ideology of development as a relentless race for space to the degradation of nature through the exploration of various themes: progress and development vs. nature, the past and present as well as how anonymous bureaucracy influences the future of a population. The Planners’, effectively portrays the reminiscing of a city’s past during its industrialization. Cheng's illusive uses of diversified techniques and metaphors reinforce the idea of preceding memories of something once loved and cherished, but now forgotten. He uses this poem as a way to convey his disdain on the carless, and thoughtless renewal of a city’s past, as its hidden beauties and past are marked by bureaucracy.

Stated in ‘A Sense of Questioning: Boey Kim Cheng on Poetry’, the poet discusses his own air of frustration over the rapid industrialisation of Singapore:“I couldn’t bear to see the way the places I loved in Singapore disappear, the thoughtlessness, the carelessness with which the country discards its past."Personally, I believe this statement perfectly divulges...