The Deliverer - Tishani Doshi

Themes (to update)

• Gender discrimination: illustrates the devastating effects of gender discrimination in India, showing how the devaluation of female life often begins at birth and leads to immense suffering, violation, and even infanticide 

• Motherhood 

• Society and culture  

‘Crippled or dark or girls.’ 

• Consonance enhances the feelings of disgust towards these characteristics, uncomfortable, dissonant (metaphorical for the fact that society will not comfort/welcome these babies) 

• Polysyndetic listing and triadiic structure adds emphasis to the enumeration of these traits. the short syntax creates a blunt and impersonal tone - constructing the babies’ identities almost as checkbox items, either they are ‘crippled or dark or girls’, objectifying them by reducing them to only visible physical traits. The statement is succinct in its bluntness, with a short syntax, suggesting a very black-and-white conception of this infanticide. The end-stopped line underscores the finality of this brutality, that you cannot argue with the statements as they are presented almost as fact. This removed, factual tone feels jarring against the subject matter of the poem, which is an abuse of human rights and national infanticide. This end-stopped line could also represent simultaneously an end or terminal point to signify the tragic end of the infant’s short lives 

• Sexism, ablism, colourism – deeply judgemental and patriarchal society 

‘Found naked in the streets’ ‘Covered in garbage’ 

• ‘Naked’ = exposed, no protection from the world both physically and emotionally. ‘naked’ as a tabula rasa, they have yet to experience the world, a tragic loss of life and potential

• Dehumanised by having a greater focus on the setting than the babies, defined by where they are found rather than who they are. Reminiscent of toys, objectifying them  

• There is no subject to this stanza, and this lack of description of the babies renders their identities vague, becoming synonymous with the environment around and ‘garbage’ that they are covered in. These infants are treated as just as disposable as the rubbish they discard – alludes to the broader lack of humanity in the situation 

• Asyndetic listing suggests an ongoing cycle of abandonment 

‘Dug up by a dog’ 

• Reducing them to animal prey, almost like a food chain - reinforces victim status

• Women viewed as less than even animals, dehumanised. Reflection of the way women and girls are metaphorically mistreated by a patriarchal society  

• Grotesque and uncomfortable image, exacerbated by the consonant ‘d’ alliteration 

• ‘Bone’ ‘wood’ ‘dog’ daily and familiar imagery creates a mundane and everyday tone, exposing the shocking prevalence of this disregard of human rights within society

• grotesque and visceral imagery contrasted by the following stanza after the subheading break - clinical, transactional and detached tone of the Americans waiting at the gates. stark contrast = representation of two different worlds, perhaps ignorance, jarring undertones for the readers

‘Trudge home to lie down for their men again’ 

• ‘Again’ creates a circular structure, exposing the inevitability of society repeating itself if change does not occur . This cyclical image does not only reflect the day-to-day repetition for the women, but also reflects the repetition of a society that continues to perpetuate misogynistic ideals through generation after generation

• End stopped line suggesting finality  

• Trudge bears connotations of walking slowly/heavily, with difficulty – apparent that these women are not returning to their men out of love or pleasure. They are trapped by societal expectations also, no more valuable than the babies they discard. 

‘Toss the baby to the heap of others’ ‘Squeeze out life’ 

• Use of verbs to create movement and action in a careless manner disturbs or concerns audiences, particularly if they are parents themselves  

• The tone of the poem lacks emotion and care, particularly through these risky actions and lack of figurative language. The imagery remains simple and realistic to evoke the brutal, raw reality 

• ‘Toss’ and ‘squeeze’ are hauntingly ordinary and informal verbs, perhaps suggesting a casual approach and normalisation of this. ‘Squeeze out life’ can be read as polysemic – the former being a mother giving birth, but the latter being infanticide. Suggesting these two are synonymous and that the process of disregarding children is inextricable from the birthing process 

• ‘Others’ and ‘heap’ widens the lens and perspective of the poem to become a broader widescale issue  (also homogenises the babies, lack of identity)

• The babies are viewed as no different from the garbage, using words physically (‘toss’) that liken them to rubbish, but also emotional attitudes through the way in which they are treated as disposable 

‘Sees how she’s passed from woman/to woman’ ‘My parents wait at the gates’ 

• Sibilance at the beginning of this line  

• Enjambment between reflects the cycle of life, no one family, constantly moving and not belonging. the use of anadiplosis structurally enacts the baby’s movement from woman to woman

• Collecting her like a parcel, objectifying/reifying

• Threshold, metaphorical gateway to a new life/identity (could subtly evoke biblical symbolism to enhance this idea of a spiritual rebirth)

• Vast socioeconomic differences between the two worlds  

‘desolate hut’ ‘village boundaries’ 

• Some cultures view birthing as dirty, bodily functions of a woman are not considered as clean 

• ‘boundaries’ spatial symbolism referencing they are on the edges of the law or morality 

‘Feel for penis or no penis’ 

• Only care if the baby is a male, women are eradicated and have no identity. Victims of a male biased, patriarchal society 

• Therefore imbues phallic imagery with power and prestige immediately from birth, laying down the foundations for a patriarchal society (microcosm)

• The use of ‘no penis’ rather than a description of the female body suggests that in this society, womanhood is merely an absence of masculinity, rather than a gender to be celebrated in its own right - transforms femininity into a lack

• plosive consonance of ‘penis’ creates a harsh phonology to the words, representative of these damaging gender ideals

Structure  

• The poem is broken up into different sections through subheadings. The two written subheadings are used to identify different locations, a convent in Kerala and an airport in the US. The use of these two locations is important as they contrast each other – the airport represents global connections, technology and a mix of cultures, whereas a convent would be seen in opposition to this, as a traditional location focussed on an individual religion. This distance between the two locations emphasises not only the physical distance that the girls must travel, and the distance between the two cultures, but also the metaphorical distance between being a wanted, cared for baby and ‘dark or crippled or girls’ (could conversely represent that issues of oppression and misogyny are world-wide)

• airports act as a heterotopia, a site of transience and movement, of travelling from place to place. (passed from woman to woman)

• Asterisks visually break up the poem and provide additional emphasis for the transition, perhaps almost reminiscent of the formatting of receipts or announcement boards, demonstrating how this is a transactional and dehumanising process. Fragmentation of identity, not belonging

• The initial consistency of end-stopped lines at the end of each stanza could be interpreted as representing the continuing cycles of this dire situation with each birth and new generation, with no completion or true end available (tercets as reflective of the pregnancy trimester and repetition of cycles of generations)

• The use of monosyllabic or words with short syntax makes the poem feel more personal and less planned, as if the narrator is providing a more brutal and honest recount of events (succinct). The reader feels complicit in the events