The Emigree

Quotes

There once was a country

Memory
Makes it sound like a story but also suggests lose

Sunlight-Clear

Light and Dark Imagery
Memory is clear and happy

it seems
i am told

hints at another voice telling her about her past

November

Light and Dark Imagery
represents difficult times, cold, dark and gloomy

the bright, filled paperweight

metaphor suggests that the narrator's memories are bright and positive, but also solid and fixed

it may be a war, it may be sick with tyrants

repeatition
emphaisies that the speaker's love and view of the country has not changed

I am branded by an impression of sunlight

Branded negative connotations juxtaposes positive light imagery of impressions of sunlight suggests permanence to her view.

White
Glow

city sounds pure and heavenly

Time rolls its tanks

Time is personified as an enemy, but it can't affect the speaker's memories

child's vocabulary
every coloured molecule

this seems to refer to the language of her childhood metaphor makes language seem bright and precious

it tastes of sunlight

gustatory imagery
increases the vividness

i have no passport, there's no way back at all

first line of stanza sounds hopeless second juxtaposes

but my city comes to me in its own white plane

personification of the city and her memories as a 'white plane' provides fluidity and suggests movement for the reader

i comb its hair and love its shining eyes

kinaesthetic imagery sounds like a child playing with a doll

through the city
their free city
they accuse me

contrasting perception
she sees it as restrictive but 'they' see it as 'free'

they accuse me

'they' is anonymous, but they are menacing, and the repetition reinforces their threat to the speaker

dark

light and dark imagery
accused of being 'dark' in her current city contrasting with the light associated with her old city

evidence of sunlight

positive ending
like a fairytale
the city is still associated with sunlight as it did with the first two stanzas