Page - 26 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/02

26 | Angela Sue Sawyer www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/2, 21–33 helps make personal and social issues public … Chapman sings about love, fidelity, self-actualisation, freedom, revolution, conflict, ecology, racism, spirituality, theology, time, life and death, dehumanization, women’s is- sues, and everyday personal struggles contextualized by social constraints and oppression.26 Many of Chapman’s songs have an upbeat tempo that contrasts with deeply sad lyrics, demonstrating the social realities of poverty, violent relationships, human greed, responsibilities, and hope. The style of the music in “The Rape of the World” – beginning with piano, then guitar and drums that beat like a quiet but insistent tribal call or even rhythmic motherly heartbeat, then with piano reintroduced – is in stark contrast to the disturbing words, producing a cognitive dissonance. Physical imagery of cities, of concrete and steel, is interspersed with actions of violation relating to ecological degradation such as mining. Empire and the extraction of resources for the military-industrial complex are visioned as regress. The “sun shining hotter” implies global warming. The human role in ecological crisis is decried by labelling the actions as “criminal”, using the theologically loaded term “sinful”. The song calls all people to respond and testify to the actions that exploit the earth, a call that tells us we are “wit- nesses” and therefore culpable if we do not intervene. Reliance on earth’s resources demonstrates our vulnerability when they are destroyed. Human actions upon the earth are depicted as cataclysmic, causing the “beginning of the end”, presumably of the world. The interconnectedness of creation is evidenced, a key facet of ecological criticism. When one part is destroyed or degraded, all are ultimately affected. Chapman’s personification works on commonplace notions of relationship to a mother, on our possible dependence on our mother for our life (via birth), ongoing health and survival. The song builds a portrait of a mother by call- ing on imagery of birth, use of terms such as “her”, and depictions related to dressing, such as the crowning of a queen and clothing. She can be cut, beaten, and poisoned as well as sexually violated. These are images associat- ed with a real person, with a person’s body and emotions. Personification is an effective literary and rhetorical tool because of the personal connection evoked in the hearer. By calling on our eyes and ears, it assumes we can see her and hear her. Ecological criticism problematises the reliance on anthro- 26 Kirk-Duggan 1997, 150.