The Emigreé - Carol Rumens

Structure

• Repetition of ‘they’ - creates an aggressive and accusatory tone to make the city seem threatening and hostile. This is reflected in the aggression aimed at her from citizens of her new city due to their racism, seen in ‘they accuse of me of being dark’. Shows that she is experiencing a new threat - no longer physical conflict but instead social rejection.

• Enjambment - use in ‘through the city / of walls’ causes the reader to see the walls as an isolated area, creating connotations of entrapment. This final stanza also contains caesura and free verse which creates a sense of chaos which could also be interpreted as an indicator of freedom.

Form

• Predominantly in free verse with no rhyme or rhythm - could represent the chaos or lack of control over a country with no stable government. This interpretation juxtaposes the positive imagery in the poem so the form could more likely be representing freedom.

• The limited order presented through similar stanza lengths could reflect the attempt at order inflicted upon her life by her emigration.

Context

• Rumens was born in London but also lived in Belfast and Wales and travelled widely throughout Russia and Eastern Europe. This is reflected in her writing which is largely about foreign customs, cultures and language.

• Part of the 1993 collection ‘Thinking of Skins’ which is centred on political consciousness in Russia and Eastern Europe. Focus on the relationship between identity and culture in the collection.

Ideas

• Extended metaphor - city meant to represent the past, to which they cannot return. Alternatively, it could be a metaphor for a lost childhood - narrator depicted to have childlike tendencies and her relationship with her former city is also shown to be somewhat maternal (‘I comb its hair and love its shining eyes’ ‘my city hides behind me’).

• It could also represent the transition from childhood to adulthood or the leaving behind of an aspect of identity.

• Can also be viewed as a literal depiction of immigrant experiences.

Title

• Contradiction between the definite article and the mysterious/more vague noun.

• Language choice distances the reader from the subject and contrast between the English and the French establishes the idea of two conflicting cultures and identities.

• Gives the poem a foreign nature.

‘There once was a country… I left it as a child

but my memory of it is sunlight-clear’

• Use of temporal deixis from the outset creates a childlike tone to the poem. This fantastical tone highlights the fact that the place described is a memory rather than a reality, showing how the place the speaker remembers is romanticised by the idealism of youth and was never as perfect as it is depicted.

• Use of ellipsis further presents the idea of the unreliability of memory by creating the pause necessary for the speaker to gather their thoughts and carry on with the story.

• Theme of sunlight referred to repeatedly.

‘The worst news I receive of it cannot break

my original view, the bright, filled paperweight.

It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants, but I

am branded by an impression of sunlight.’

• Metaphor - cannot let go of their memories of the ‘city’ to imagine it as a darker place. Holds onto fond memories - might suggest their suffering.

• Use of the subjunctive case shows that the city’s flaws seem hypothetical to her.

• Juxtaposes positive connotations of ‘sunlight’ with negative connotations of ‘branded’, perhaps showing that her love for her country will always overrule any feelings of pain caused by it.

‘the graceful slopes

glow even clearer as time rolls its tanks’

• Alliteration.

• Military imagery - connotes oppression.

• ‘tanks’ could be metaphorical - forces of darker adulthood experiences and trauma.

• As time ‘rolls’ on, so does the violence.

‘That child’s vocabulary I carried here

like a hollow doll, opens and spills a grammar’

Simile and the theme of language show that the narrator has not moved on from her childhood.

‘It tastes of sunlight’

Gustatory imagery shows the narrator’s delight in the memory.

‘I have no passport, there’s no way back at all

but my city comes to me in its own white plane.’

• Alludes to the pain and conflict inflicted by man-made borders.

‘It lies down in front of me, docile as paper;

I comb its hair and love its shining eyes.’

Despite the control of the city, nothing shakes the emigrée’s childhood memories of it as a perfect place - shows the power that places can have, even over those who have left them long ago and never revisited.

‘My city takes me dancing through the city

of walls.’

Imagery of separation. Reflected by enjambment.

‘They accuse me of absence, they circle me.

They accuse me of being dark in their free city.’

• Emphatic repetition - shows the persecution the narrator endures in their new home by creating a violent tone.

• The clear sense of fondness for the place being accompanied by a more threatening tone suggests perhaps that the relationship with the past and this place is not necessarily positive for the speaker.

‘They mutter death,

and my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight.’

Epistrophe - demonstrates that no matter what she hears in the news, the speaker will always have a positive view of her city.