The Emigree

Question 1

‘There once was a country… (…) my memory of it is sunlight clear’

Answer 1

• Opening sounds like a fairytale, temporal deixis
• Ellipsis, thinking about ‘was’ suggesting it isn’t anymore
• Motif of sunlight - represents hope, rose tinted view
• Later ‘sunlight’ is seen as a metaphor for disinfecting the diseases of ‘tyranny’

Question 2

‘That child’s vocabulary… spills a grammar’

Answer 2

• The language she spoke in her foreign city
• Also the child’s way of looking at the world, more innocent/naive perspective
• ‘Hollow doll’ - maybe like a Russian doll, maybe locating her city which had been consumed by other power (maybe Russia and it’s sphere of influence)
• ‘Hollow’ - not a full perspective of the word
• Direct reference that language is power