Whilst Leila Sleeps - Key Quotes Flashcards
“I am moving in the dead of night”
Speakers Experience - moving/dead suggest attempt at hiding, doing something to be undetected.
“My fingers tie knots like fish nets”
Similie - suggest belongings are varied - gathering them up - foreshadowing being caught worried revealing anxiety.
“I want to be in my mother’s house”
scared adult sounds child like, state of stress has reduced her to a child seeking security from childhood.
“Boxes;/ I can’t see out of the back window”
Metaphor - no turning back can’t see what’s coming.
“Leila is a bundle in her car seat”
child is young/baby - wrapped up in that moment could be seen as another item in the car to her pursuers.
“My headlights are paranoid eyes”
Metaphor (personification) - eyes- speaker looking around, scared of being caught.
“Now there is nothing left/ but to go with the men in plain suits”
nobody to stop them they can do what they want. NOTHING LEFT saw those documents as her identity and they were important, now she has no identity.
“My voice is a house with the roof/ blown off”
Metaphor - Trying to put a brave face on and trying to keep her daughter calm - not working - possibly reminds her of past experiences.
“What do i tell my daughter”
There is no doubt in her mind she knows the outcome. She has no words.
“There is a need to worry”
reinforces how she is aware of the danger she is in.
“a slow light rails the fast car”
There is always visibility and it is inevitable that she will get caught up with it.
“I whisper/ her cradle song and she holds on”
half rhyme - hopes to comfort her daughter and hopes that whatever ordeal that they are going through they’ll get through it.
Main Themes?
- Mother/ Child Relationship
- Displacement
- Identity / Loss if identity
