🧻 tissue Flashcards
Who is the poet of Tissue?
Imtiaz Dharker
Summary of Tissue
Tissue paper is described to be fragile and easily affected by aging and handling. Paper is then attributed to the significance of the Koran. Maps and buildings are then included in the extended metaphor. Dharker claims that an architect could use tissue to build with and never need to use brick again. Tissue is then finally likened to skin.
5 key quotes in Tissue
1) ‘Paper that lets the light shine through’
- Bible paper is really thin. Jesus says ‘I am the light of the world’
- In the Koran: ‘Allahh is the light of the heavens and earth’
- Light = power of religion and metphor of God and metaphor for nature. Can change, God has power
2) ‘Maps too. The sun shines through’
- ‘Maps’ have borders -> no control or freedom. Has boundaries to segregate and divide the natural world through man power. Man is trying to extert power over nature, creating divides which are not naturally there.
- Nature > paper because the sun is able to shine through it. Nature’s power is permanent and overpowers and overwhelms man’s attempt to control -> mocks man’s attempt to dominate. God and nature overweighs the power of man-kind
3) ‘might fly our lives like paper kites’
- SIMILE
- Money dominates and has power over us. But they are fragile and easily destroyed.
4) ‘let the daylight break through capitals and monoliths’
- Nature > buildings
- METAPHOR demonstrates the overwhelming power of daylight - something people can’t control
- Capitals and monoliths represent government buildings which symbolize human power
5) ‘turned into your skin’
- Single line stanza. The final line is left separate to make it clear to the lostener that they are meant to consider the meaning of the poem in relation to their life
- Where human tissue and tissue paper are made to link together. Human power is fragile like tissue paper
Context for Tissue
TERRORIST AT MY TABLE
- Presents the idea that humans do not have the right attitude to life, we see it as permanent and an opportunity to gain power. This critical view may be reflective of her having to see her husband suffer from cancer for 11 years before dying of it which may have demonstrated to her temporary nature of life.
Form and structure of Tissue
ALLEGORY
- Has a hidden meaning of revealing the transience of life
FREE VERSE, NO RHYME, NO CONSISTENCY OF SYLLABLES
- Lack of power man has, efforts are futile
Key themes in Tissue
- Criticising how people care more about possessions and money than humanity
- We have control over paper but no control or freedom in building
- Man-made power is not permanent
Poem to compare with Tissue
LONDON
- S: show human power as a source of opression and suffering. Criticise material wealth and inequality
- D: London is accepting the cyclical nature of corruption. Tissue is offering a solution to the problem of power
