Isolation Flashcards
“He would bring her to Herat, to live in his house, just like his other children.”
-“other” adjective emphasised her loneliness and rejection from society.
“A solitary eleventh pebble”
-“solitary” referenced her loneliness
-metaphor for how she has been discarded and outcast from her siblings
“Now all those familiar things were gone. Nana was dead and she was here in a strange city, seperated from the life she had known by valleys and chains of snow capped mountains”
-isolation and seperation
-nature description emulates comfort
“Miriam knew to go upstairs to her room and close the door…Rasheed had told Mariam that she was not to come down until the visitors had left.”
-verbs “knew” show the expectations she must abide by
-“told”, “close”, “not” restrictions
-theme of isolation
-expectations of women
“Then he was gone, leaving Mariam to spit out pebbles, blood and the fragments of two broken molars”
-broken molars could be a metaphor for her broken marriage or herself
-the damage to her mouth could represent her lack of voice.
-“Then he was gone”- contestant left alone
When school let out, Mammy again didn’t show up.
-this shows the neglect of laila and “again” shows this is a common occurrence
“But mammy never opened the door. She didn’t open it now.”
-two short sentence shows her neglect
-“never” and “didn’t” negatives
“Laila always felt excluded when the talk turned to her brothers, as though the women were discussing a beloved film that only she hadn’t seen”
-simile of film to show how she feels left out
-“only” connotes isolation
“Laila felt useless”
-short sentence shows how she doesn’t feel useful and feels completely neglected
“But all she ran into was their absence. And laila”
-short sentence makes her seem like an after thoight
“They had overshadowed her in life. They would obliterate her in death. Mammy was now the curator of their lives museum and she, Laila, a mere visitor. A receptacle for their myths. The parchment on which mammy meant to ink their legends”
-listing of metaphors express how laila feels a lack of importance
Hasina,gone. Giti, dead. Mammy, dead. Babi, dead.”
-short sentences create a bluntness that emulates the blunt pain of these deaths
“I was here first. I won’t be thrown out. I won’t have you cast me out.”
- short sentences and and modal verbs shows her desperation to not be outcasted like her mother
“The dark was total, impenetrable and constant.”
-rule of three adjectives emphasises how isolated she is (simple technique maybe shows how she has lost hope)
- short sentence creates
bluntness as she has no escape
- microcosm for the entrapment of women in Afghanistan
