Tissue + London

• • both poets present power negatively as people allow it to control them
• 1. Tissue - strength of weak things presented to show irony

  • title of Tissue could link to weakness
  • tissue connotes weakness
  • "turned into your skin" - documents form identity yet being so weak
  • e.g Quran and maps - identity
• 2. Tissue - irony of power of wealth

  • reciepts and card "fly over our lives like paper kites"
  • power of money - lack of control
  • irony of control "structure never meant to last"
  • temporary nature of seemingly important things
  • human make structures like money, but given power to
• 3. London - disdain for establishments

  • "mindforged manacles"
  • Romanticism - human gave temporary power to corrupt establishements
  • to keep humans in poverty and establishments rich
  • but establishment still worshipped
• 4. London - those in poverty mentioned

  • "hapless soldier's sigh runs in blood down palace walls"
  • corruption
  • "blood" symbolises monarch being built on exploitation
  • those who die for "king and country" exploited to give monarchy power
  • "blood" symbolises guilt of monarchy
• 5. London - those directly disadvantaged by power

  • "harlot" "chimney sweeper" - ridicule idea of class
  • are in "mindforged manacles"- keep estbalishments powerful by thinking they are powerless
  • perhaps meant as call to revolution - French revolution that sparked Romantism