Living Space Flashcards
Title
Life is simply temporary, there is no attachment or comfort , it is just utile
Form
Free verse portrays the lack of regularity in the slums and the jumbled, patched-up, thrown-together nature of the slums
Lack of regularity in rhyme, rhythm, line and stanza length
Enjambement emphasises disorder.
Final two stanzas are one long sentence-???
Caesura
Disrupts rhythm, symbolising the jagged housing
Enjambement
Portrays how one house runs into the next . Too many words to fit in a small space .
Or politically, how one problem runs into the next
Structure?
Someone has squeezed a living space - rhyme continues into next stanza, attempts to pull together
The stanza is squeezed between two others
First half is a physical description
Second half turns political
Language
Semantic field of chaos and disorder
‘Thrust’ seems almost dangerous
Light vs imagery ; ‘white’ and ‘light’ symbolise hope but the ‘dark edge’ the hazardous, uncertain future
The egg metaphor
New life
The next generation - the innocents
The houses are like eggs- they are fragile but they hold life
Hope is easily broken
Straight lines
The whole structure leans dangerous
Symbolises through the irregular line length
The whole line leans out
That is the problem.
Seems like an over-simplification with the matter-of-fact tone distancing the narrator, but it is rlly a statement about equality.
Nothing is flat
Equality -> political statement
Nothing -> emphasise severity of the problem
Beams balance
Beams torn about by enjambement and held together by alliteration -> symbol of the people uniting despite politics tearing them apart
Nails clutch
Personification
The things that hold people things together are desperate - the unity is saving. But the participle seems visceral
Miraculous
Sudden juxtaposition with positive imagery but it isn’t positive, they need a miracle to stay alive
A living space
Home in chaos , structure
Distant imagery, it is not a home, no comfort
‘Dared’
Emphasise the severity of the situation
Dharker is in awe of those brave enough to live there o
Eggs in a wire basket
Fragility in the Hands of cruelty -> political message
Fragile curves of white
Juxtaposition, sudden tender colour imagery
Hung out over a dark edge
The unknown?
Inevitable death?
A slanted universe
Political message -> the world is unfair
Gathering the light
The egg prevails
Hope is poured into the next generation
Bright, thin walls of faith
Religious allusion -> the faith holds the slum together
Thin- faith and life is fragile
The walls of the house hold optimism , as does the egg, but are easily broken
Faith, is typically positive and this compiles unlike ‘miraculous’ - shows a growth in positivity, hope and optimism
CONTEXT
Imtiaz Dharker was born in Pakistan and raised in Glasgow
Now lives in Britain and India
From 1997 collection ‘Postcards from god’, about the slums in Mumbai
