Tissue

• Dharker's family moves from Pakistan to Scotland and she begins to work in India

  Idea of history and lineage being lost is already apparent within her life which may show the desire to change
• Extended metaphors to show that everyone is equal regardless of skin colour and religion

  Poem aims to make this more accepted
• 'Paper that lets light shine through, this is what could alter things'


  Semantic field of religion as there is reference to God's light

  Subtle use of Christian language through the word 'alter' however it is a homophone which may aim to portray a Muslim view to Christians and show that Islam and Christianity are similar
• 'alter things'


  Sets her aim and desire to change the perspectives of her readers and culture that she lives in
• 'Architect'


  Links to God or Allah as they are the original architects of the world
• ‘The back of the Koran, where a hand has written in the names and histories’ 


  Moving from tissue being paper to tissue being skin due to generational heirlooms
• ‘Koran’ and the teachings do not make the religions similar however the ‘names and histories’ do

  Shows how they are both important to families and viewed in the same respect
• ‘Hand’ shows that regardless of culture we have hands as it doesn’t focus on the actual person

  The hand is removed from a body

  We are divorced from our ‘names and histories’ and aren’t in touch with them

  Dharker trying to put us back in touch?
• ‘Maps too. The sun shines through their borderlines’ 


  Map is perfect symbol of different cultures/countries competing with each other and often enemies 
• ‘The sun shines through their borderlines’ 


  Suggests that there is a light which can show divisions and borders are illusions .. God's light of equality?

  We are the exact same regardless of whatever side we are on of the border 
• 'Sun'


  Historically has always been used to represent god's power
• 'Maps too'


  Referring 'maps' to tissue makes them seem fragile and like an illusion

  They are a construct we have invented, a set of differences we imagine to exist

  These differences are not real and are illusions

  Under the right light we can see this (God’s light.. Regardless of faith)
• Form is free verse

  Acts as natural speech like she is talking to us 
• Structure is reasonably formal as each stanza is 4 lines long until the final stanza where we have the Volta

  Gives her final viewpoint on its own line
• ‘Find a way to trace a grand design with living tissue’ 


  Using language of building however this architect is going to design something with ‘living tissue’
• 'Grand design'


  Does not imply that people will be of the same culture however it does the opposite

  ‘Grand' is symbolic that it is bigger than something local, worldwide 

  Not an easy task due to its 'grand' scale and so shows the architect finally ‘[finding] a way’ 
• ‘Trace’


  Trace a line on paper, trace heritage/family line 

  Tracing history back, we all go back to the same ancestors

  Just a few thousand years ago we were the same people type stuff
• ‘And thinned to be transparent turned into your skin’ 


  Deliberately not a permanent structure 

  Permanence encourages us to put down roots and differences, paper is 'thinned' and so the borders between cultures are easy to break down. Easier to understand cultures if they are like your own

  Poet conveys that she wants everyone to have the same tissue to promote equality and the lack of discrimination there would be if skin turned 'transparent'

  Deliberate alliteration emphasises the Volta where she gives the idea of confrontation for acceptance
• Assonance in the letter ‘i’ in ‘living’ ‘tissue’ ‘thinned’ ‘tissue’ ‘into’

  Emphasis to give the idea of her identity which she now wants to be the readers identity.

  Transparency to be shared
• Dominant culture appears to be the western one in which Muslims are a minority

  Implied audience for the message are non Muslim and most likely white

  She is asking for acceptance from the white people by saying that we are all the same under the surface