Search for My Tongue Flashcards
1
Q
Form
A
- Free verse
- Shows her uncertainty and disorientation in her identity
It is also written in first person to show how it is her own personal experience
2
Q
Main themes
A
- Indentity
- Language
- Immigration and cultural heritage
3
Q
Lack of metre and rhyme scheme
A
- Shows her uncertainty between her two identities
- Makes the poem seem conversational
4
Q
Middle section being in Gujarati
A
- Represents her mother tongue reasserting itself
- It is also mimetic of the split between her two identities
- The inclusion of another language also represents her purpose of showing people what it is like to be exposed to another culture and the indentity crisis that precipitates
5
Q
Phonetical transcription and translation of middle section
A
Shows her pride in her mother language
6
Q
Enjambment
A
- At the start it shows her uncertainty and confusion when grappling with her multiple identities
- Later it shows her excitedness due to the regrowth of her monther tongue once it has started
7
Q
‘I ask you, what would you do’
A
- Second person pronouns (continued throughout the poem)
- Makes it feel personal - her intended reader is somebody who is not bilingual and in an identity crisis - she wants us to know what it feels like
8
Q
‘by saying I have lost my tongue’
A
- Starts building the extended metaphor of a tongue referring to a language (also a synecdoche)
- Shows how she feels she has lost her indentity due to the loss of her language, which higlights how fundamental a language is in the formation of an identity
9
Q
‘if you had two tongues in your mouth’
A
- Continues extended metaphor
- Vivid, disgusting imagery to highlight to the reader who might not know how difficult and uncomfortable it is to have two identities
10
Q
‘the mother tongue’ and ‘the foreign tongue’
A
- Juxtaposition
- Highlights how she feels her first language is still true to her and her second language is still foreign, yet she is being forced from one to the other so has an indentity crisis
11
Q
‘your mother tongue would rot, rot and die in your mouth’
A
- Repetition, unpleasant imagery and extending of the metaphor
- Highlights her emotion and fear that she will fully lose her mother tongue, and the value she places in the retention of her original language
12
Q
‘until you had to spit it out. I thought I spit it out’
A
- Repetition and harsh consonant sounds
- Further shows her fear of fully losing her mother tongue, as well as how it is a struggle to try and keep this first indentity when in a foreign world
13
Q
‘but overnight while I dream’
A
- Volta
- Shows the seperation between her two indentities, one feels true, one feels forced and how the true one will always win any metaphorical battles
14
Q
‘it grows back, a stump of a shoot’ and ‘the bud opens, the bud opens in my mouth’ and ‘it blossoms out of my mouth’
A
- Extended metaphor comparing her mother tongue to a plant
- It is a harsh contrast to the unpleasant imagery of having two tongues in your mouth and one of them dying, showing how her mother tongue feels right, and even makes her feel ‘alive’
- Shows how her first indentity blossoming swallows up the ‘weed’ or her foreign identity when she is dreaming
15
Q
‘grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins’
A
- Repetition and asyndetic list
- Highlights the exictement and speed with which her mother tongue re-establishes itself
- The positivity highlights how she will never comprimise with being split between two identities and would much prefer that her mother tongue is dominant over foreign tongues
