The Emigree

• Who wrote 'the Emigree'?

  Carol Rumens
• "there once was a country...I left it as a child"

  • does the county no longer exist in this form?

  • "Once" - allusion to the opening of a fairy tale: - reliability under question from start

  - mystical. Reliance on imagination

  • "..." Eclipse: interrupted? Incomplete?
• "But my memory of it is sunlight clear"

  • "sunlight": use of a metaphor

  - warm and comfortable but also blinding. Accurate?

  - bleached and undefined
• "My original view, the bright, filled paperweight."

  • "bright"- vibrant but fragile memory

  • "paperweight"- metaphor: static and idealized

  - city scene sold as a souvenir

  - tourist: can only visit in mental travel or memory
• "Time rolls it's tanks"

  • metaphor: time as an army creating barriers between her and her home

  - she stands in opposition by refusing to forget

  ( And in opposition to the oppressors of her country )
• "And the frontiers rose between us, close like waves"

  • ironic simile: frontiers aren't like waves- they are static.

  - waves constantly move

  - can pass through other waves

  - waves are natural

  (Frontiers are borders of boundaries)
• "my city"

  • "My" - extended personification to make relationship intimate and important despite distance and time.

  - memory is her only way of connection

  - possessive language asserts authority over memory ( not belonging to a political entity or army)
• "takes me dancing through the city of walls"

  • "dancing" - expression of joy and freedom at odds with oppression, anguish and strife

  = ACT OF REBELLION!

  • "Walls"- separate from city locals?

  - ostracised?

  - alienated?
• "my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight"

  • "shadow"- the fact that she is still living/ existing proves there is moral good beyond the darkness of a city or county in war.
• • Rumens explores the pain and confusion of the emigrants experience

  - and the emotion of alienation when one is cut of from ones identity
• • While also exploring some of the traumatic effects of exile, Rumens shows how memory can give people strength and comfort.
• • Rumens also examines the unreliability of memory- she asserts it's lashing power, but also implies that it's also limited and fallible( imperfect)
• "There once was a city... I left it as a child

  But my memory of it is sunlight clear"
• " My original view, the bright, filled paperweight"
• "time rolls it's tanks

  And the frontiers rose between us, close like waves"
• "my city takes me dancing through the walls."
• "My shadow falls as evidence of sunlight"