the deliverer Flashcards
How is the title significant?
The title could be a reference to three things: the speaker’s mother who ‘delivers’ the girl from India to the US, the biological mother giving birth to the child, or the act of ‘deliverance’ (to be saved). The ambiguity of the title links to what it means to be a mother
‘The sister…
…here is telling my mother’
What is the AO2? ‘the sister here is telling me mother’
Hints at the lost relationship between the narrator and the baby, purposefully ambiguous to question what it means to be a mother
‘Because they…
…we’re crippled or dark or girls’
What is the AO2? ‘Because they were crippled or dark or girls’
Listing conveys how the girls are reduced to defective labels, ‘girls’ is placed at end to emphasise this discrimination
What verbs are used to present the girls as having no value?
‘covered in garbage’, ‘stuffed in bags’, ‘abandoned at their doorstep’
What quotations convey the girls’ lack of a human identity?
‘dug up by a dog’ - the girls are reduced to a status below even an animal
‘bone or wood, something to chew’ - girls denied a human identity, single syllable words conveys brutal nature of this treatment
‘This is the…
…one my mother will bring.’
What is the AO2? ‘This is the one my mother will bring.’
The girls are once again denied an identity, also conveys how only ‘one’ (a small number) will ever be saved
Why is the middle section set in ‘Milwaukee Airport’
Conveys the idea of journeys and new beginnings
‘Don’t know if her…
…fetish for plucking hair off hands, or how her mother tried to bury her’
What is the AO2? ‘don’t know if her fetish for plucking hair off hands, or how her mother tried to bury her’
Line break emphasises the jarring juxtaposition of a tender, intimate act with one that is brutal and cruel
‘This girl…
…grows up on video tapes’
What is the AO2? ‘This girl grows up on video tapes’
Metaphor for her creating memories of what her childhood may have been
What is the AO2? ‘She returns to twilight corners.’
Light imagery suggest a liminal space or partial memory, emphasised by this final section having no named location
‘in some…
…desolate hut outside village boundaries’
What is the AO2? ‘in some desolate hut outside village boundaries’
Presents this as a taboo act that must be hidden from mainstream society
What is the AO2? ‘Feel for penis or no penis’
Blunt language used conveys the strict binary and lack of choice that the women face
‘Trudge home…
…to lie down for their men again’
What is the AO2? ‘Trudge home to lie down for their men again’
Shifts from mothers being cold and callous to victims of a patriarchal society, suggests this violence, pain and suffering is a continuous cycle
