TISSUE

• TISSUE (Imtiaz Dharker)

  Ideasss

  1. Dharker empahsises how we place a lot of importance on man made objects which control and dictate our lives. She shows us how foolish this is as these objects are fragile and in reality should not be prioritised.
  2. Dharker uses her poem to also prioritise humanity- this means she wants us to focus on being compassionate human beings instead of prioritising materialistic objects.

  (We are structured by things like money and contracts, which are just pieces of paper. Dharker argues these oppress and control us and that we shoould replace them with humanity because they are fragile.)
• FORM

  The poem is written in free verse. This is shown in order to perhaps model the freedom that she wants to see within society, as she would like us to break free from the man made objects which are currently controlling our lives.

  • last line on its own- suggests the need to reclaim humanity.
• IMAGERY 1

  "Maps too. The sun shines through their borderlines"

  • "shines through"-> the paper that the maps are printed on is presented as transparent which reiterates its fragility as something light can penetrate through it.
  • "map"-> maps are often used to determine where we are from.
  • "border lines"-> (man-made borders) tells us where one country begins and another country ends. Dharker is implying that maps can be seen as important because they can influence your identity and your understanding of yourself.
  • Dharker empowers us by having the light shine through the borderlines of the map as a way of implicitly showing us that we should be responsible for our own sense of belonging and our own understanding of ourselves.
  • Dharker suggests that our own identity is a man-made construction-> we are controlled by this (it is fragile).
• IMAGERY 2

  "What wa soaid by credit card might fly our lives like paper kites"

  • Credit card is when you are given money by yourbank on the premise that you will pay it back with interest. Dharker uses a simile to describe the feeling a credit card can bring-> "fly" - makes us think of a sense of freedom as you can travel anywhere with ease.
  • "paper kite"-> "kites" typically drawn by a string which has to be held by someone at the bottom. Dharker is suggesting that, like a kite wish has minimal freedom, credit cards can offer us a euphoric feeling which doesn't last very long as we are soon hit with the reaisation that we are not actually free and are controlled by the bank (false sense of freedom).
• IMAGERY 3

  "turned into your skin"

  • "skin"-> is part of the human body- it covers every part of the human body.
  • The skin has a very important role within the human body- arguably, the skin is more important than man-made objects (materialisic objects) like maps, receipts and credit cards.
  • Whilst both the skin and the man-made objects are all fragile and weak; Dharker is showing us that, we hsould be prioritising humanity as oppose to these man-made objects which control our lives.
  • Dharker is trying ot promote a sene of compassion and respect amongst society - not a sense of competition or reliance on materialistic items.
• LANGUAGE

  "shine through", "smoothed", "thinned", "fall away", "transparent", "fine", "luminous"

  • Lexical fiels of fragility or delicate (all the words and phrases present the object as weak.)
  • "shine through"-> makes us imagine paper that is xtremely thin and easily allows light to penetrate through it.
  • "fall away"-> creates an image that if touched or handled in any way, it would break apart.
  • Dharker uses the lexical field of fragility to reiterate how foolish we are for enabling such futile things to control our lives.
  • Represents how the structures in society made of paper are delicate, weak and fragile.
• STRUCTURE

  "Turned into your skin"-> Dharker has made the choice to have this last line as it's own stanza, separate from the rest of the poem and it is the last thing that we read. This could be in order to make the message from this line the most memorable thing as this is where she is promoting a greater focus on being human and showing compassion and care, instead of prioritising materialistic items.