The Emigree Flashcards
Who wrote the Emigree?
Carol Rumens
What is the effect of an ellipses?
It creates a caesura, indicating flashbacks of past memories
What language device is “sunlight-clear”?
Pathetic Fallacy
What effect does the repetition of “accuse” have?
It gives a sinister identity to the new city’s oppression
What is an example of personification?
‘My city comes to me’
‘Time rolls its tanks’
What key techniques are used?
Repetition
Juxtaposition
Imagery
Personification
What is the theme presented?
Individual freedom versus forced absence
What method is used throughout?
Extended metaphor
What is the effect of synaesthesia?
Shows the confusion of memories
Emphasises the flawed but joyous nature of the memory
What does “I am branded by an impression of sunlight” convey?
Sense of marked for wrongness
How does the poem begin?
‘There once was a country’
When did she leave the country?
When she was a child.
What do the words ‘sunlight-clear’ and ‘bright’ suggest about her memories?
They are positive
What does the ‘white streets of that city’ suggest?
The city is pure.
What is taken away when she moves to the new country?
Her passport.
What could the references to light and dark represent?
Good and Bad
Which poem does it link with most effectively?
Checking Out Me History
What is an emigrant?
Someone who leaves their country to settle in another, permanently
There is a strong sense of what in the poem?
Nostalgia
What is one way a sense of danger communicated in the poem?
The repetition of “they”
- it is not revealed who “they” are, though, the reader implies “they” are a threat
What could the city represent?
Anything that the speaker has had to leave behind
What is the effect of the poem being written in first person?
It creates a personal ad intimate tone
What techniques mirror how fragmented and war-torn the place she has fled from is?
The lack of regular rhythm and rhyme
Enjambment
Caesura
What is another effect of enjambment in the poem?
It gives the poem fluidity and a certain gentleness and tenderness.
This could emphasise her affection towards the city.
Compared to the lack of regular rhyme or rhythm, what could the regular stanzas reflect?
They could reflect the speaker’s refusal to the let the disruption and war overpower her memories.
What could the slightly longer final stanza reflect?
Her desire to prolong those positive memories (e.g. how she is dancing through the city)
What are some of the key themes explored in the poem?
Danger and bravery
Memory and Nostalgia
Childhood
Give an example of personification in the poem:
“I comb its hair and love its shining eyes”
What is the effect of the personification in “I comb its hair and love its shining eyes”?
It intensifies the sense of the speaker’s love and affection towards the city
Give an example of a metaphor in the poem:
“The worst news I receive of it cannot break / My original view, the bright filled paperweight”
What does the metaphor “The worst news I receive of it cannot break / My original view, the bright filled paperweight” suggest?
The strength and solidity of the speaker’s positive memories?
What is the purpose of light and colour imagery in the poem?
To emphasise the speaker’s overwhelmingly positive memories of the city
Give examples of light and colour imagery in the poem:
“my memory of it is sunlight-clear…”
“the white streets….”
“I shall have every coloured molecule of it….”
What does the repeated use of possessive pronouns convey?
The speaker’s deep admiration for, and pride in, her country
What is the purpose of not naming the city?
Rumens wants many people to find relevance in her writing. She could be writing on behalf of all the emigrees.
What phrases gives the reader the impression the speaker is an exile?
“There was once a city…I left it as a child”
“Frontiers rise between us”
“I have no passport, there’s no way back at all”
“They accuse me”
What does Rumens draw a contrast between in the poem?
The speaker’s positive memories and their negative impressions of the city now.
What techniques draw on the contrast between positive memories and negative impressions?
Irony
Repetition and change of tone
Positive vs negative images
How is Irony created in the poem?
Even though the speaker remembers her city fondly, she seems at odds with the people currently controlling the city.
The irony is that “they” see it as “their free city” but the language she uses like “sick with tyrants” suggests restriction and oppresion
What are positive, bright images associated with the speaker’s memories juxtaposed with in the poem?
Harsher, negative images of the homelands current, war-torn state.
What does the juxtaposition of positive and negative images emphasise?
The strength of her memories that overpower the far more negative reality
What word or phrase is repeated in the last stanza to give the poem a more menacing and negative tone?
“They”
What phrase does the speaker use to make the phrase “their free city” sound ironic?
“Sick with tyrants”
What quotation personifies the city and emphasises the strength of her dislike for the people currently controlling the city?
“It may be sick with tyrants”
What quotation conjures up images of innocence and purity?
“I comb its hair and love its shining eyes”
What poems could you compare with The Emigree on the theme of conflicting emotions?
Bayonet Charge
Poppies
What poems could compare with The Emigree on the theme of Identity?
Kamikaze
Checking Out Me History
What poems could you comapre with The Emigree on the theme of power of place?
London
The Prelude
