The Emigrée Flashcards
About
A displaced person imagines her home city. She personifies the city and imagines others trying to threaten her while she protects her vision of the city.
Themes (5)
• Identity: - Checking Out Me History, London: Connection to a place, Prelude: Connection to a place, Storm on the Island: Connection to a place, conflict within that place
- Loss and absence
- Individual experience
- Memory - Prelude
- Effects of conflict - Storm on the Island
Big Ideas (4)
- Memory – selective, only remembers the positives
- Loss and displacement from her home country
- Freedom and restriction – freedom = memory enabled, restriction = reality
- Patriotism and identity – heritage and loyalty and how they shape us
“but I am branded by an impression of sunlight”, “sunlight-clear”
Memory
Identity
Happy, positivity – “clear”, not dark or obscure from clouds – easy to see
Remembers it well – selective memory – filter – only remembers positives
However, sunlight is blinding, dazzled by it = doesn’t have clear overall picture but only the positives
“bright, filled paperweight”
Memory
Bright, colourful memories – similar to shape of a brain – wants to take them with her, remember them
“Weight” = weighed down by lots of memories
Possibly oppression by a leader, bright memories cannot be free
“branded”, “impression”
Memory
Identity
Cannot be changed, fixed mindset of selected memories
Not actually the reality, just what she wants to see
“white”, “graceful”, “glow”
Memory
Identity
“White” = innocence, purity, paper in the paperweight
Positive imagery, clean, beautiful
“tanks”, “frontiers rise between us”
Conflict
Negative, war imagery
She is leaving as a result of war but still treasures childhood memories of innocence unaware of war
“I comb its hair and love its shining eyes”
Identity
Personification: 1. Care, loving it lie another person – such a key part of her childhood/life, 2. A part of her person – identity, heritage, 3. Feels alive to her in her memories, treating it like a doll
“my city takes me dancing through the city of walls”
Identity
Contrast between “dancing” = freedom, fun, expression of happiness and “city of walls” = restriction, negative, enclosure and barriers
She sees a difference between “my city” and “the city”, when in reality both cities are the same divided place
“my city hides behind me. They mutter death”
Conflict
Hides behind me = her city in her mind, the innocence of childhood she is protecting as the reality of war and terror attack her from the front
She is scared they will kill her, threatening
“They” = no longer apart of them/ apart of her, doesn’t identify with the violence or change whilst “My (city)” shows she still is a part of the peaceful city it once was
“my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight”
Conflict
Identity
For a negative/shadow to exist there must have been a positive/light
“Shadow” = stays with her, follows her
He bad things in the city, the reason for the shadow is there once was a positive connection to the city
Now she can see this shadow, she can appreciate and remember the sunlight on its own
Structure (3)
- First-person monologue over 3 stanzas
- First tow have 8 lines, last one has 9, extra line may represent hope for change
- All stanzas end in “sunlight” – repeated motif/theme that positivity will always be the last thing on her mind when it comes to her city, not the negativity, doesn’t want her sight of her city to change
Context (4)
- Despite her South London roots, Rumens’ poetry explores the fascination with elsewhere.
- The poem reflects the torn identity of being displaced from your home – a topical theme for British and European readers
- The poem was published in 1993 just after the fall of communism and the liberation of Eastern Europe from Soviet tyranny
- There is indication that she was a refugee from one of the Soviet states.
