The Émigrée by Carol Rumens - AQAThemes

In The Émigrée, a displaced person reflects on their city of birth. The poem’s content, ideas, language and structure are explored. Comparisons and alternative interpretations are also considered.

Part ofEnglish LiteraturePoems

Themes

Sunset over a ruined Afghan town
It is suggested that the now unreachable city in ‘The Émigrée’ represents the past

A number of unifying ideas or run through the poem. Different readers may attach more or less significance to each of these themes, depending upon how they view the poem.

ThemeEvidenceAnalysis
Exile: The speaker seems to be an exile from an unknown city.‘émigrée’, ‘I left it as a child’, ‘the frontiers rise between us’, ‘there’s no way back’, ‘I have no passport’. Perhaps this mysterious and now unreachable city the speaker recollects is meant to represent the past, to which they can’t return to. A repeated comparison like this, which runs through the poem, is known as an extended metaphor.
News reports: Words and phrases associated with TV news bulletins used throughout.Vocabulary of the newsroom - ‘worst news’, ‘at war’, ‘tyrants’, ‘rolls its tanks’, ‘banned by the state’.The vocabulary used throughout the poem depicts a war-torn country under the control of a brutal government. If the speaker’s memories are of childhood, perhaps these terms are meant to represent the harsh realities of the adult word.
Light and shade: References to sunlight is repeated all the way through.‘sunlight-clear’, ‘branded by … sunlight’, ‘bright, filled paperweight’, ‘the white streets’, ‘tastes of sunlight’, ‘being dark’, ‘my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight’.The repeated references to sunlight suggest the speaker has an idealised, almost dream-like picture of the past, where it is always sunny. However, the place is not as perfect as she remembers it and mentions of ‘dark’ and ‘death’ imply that things are not as ideal as her memories suggest. There is a sense that her relationship with the place may be threatening to her in some way.
ThemeExile: The speaker seems to be an exile from an unknown city.
Evidence‘émigrée’, ‘I left it as a child’, ‘the frontiers rise between us’, ‘there’s no way back’, ‘I have no passport’.
Analysis Perhaps this mysterious and now unreachable city the speaker recollects is meant to represent the past, to which they can’t return to. A repeated comparison like this, which runs through the poem, is known as an extended metaphor.
ThemeNews reports: Words and phrases associated with TV news bulletins used throughout.
EvidenceVocabulary of the newsroom - ‘worst news’, ‘at war’, ‘tyrants’, ‘rolls its tanks’, ‘banned by the state’.
AnalysisThe vocabulary used throughout the poem depicts a war-torn country under the control of a brutal government. If the speaker’s memories are of childhood, perhaps these terms are meant to represent the harsh realities of the adult word.
ThemeLight and shade: References to sunlight is repeated all the way through.
Evidence‘sunlight-clear’, ‘branded by … sunlight’, ‘bright, filled paperweight’, ‘the white streets’, ‘tastes of sunlight’, ‘being dark’, ‘my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight’.
AnalysisThe repeated references to sunlight suggest the speaker has an idealised, almost dream-like picture of the past, where it is always sunny. However, the place is not as perfect as she remembers it and mentions of ‘dark’ and ‘death’ imply that things are not as ideal as her memories suggest. There is a sense that her relationship with the place may be threatening to her in some way.

Question

What does the phrase ‘I comb its hair and love its shining eyes’ suggest about the émigrée’s relationship with the city?

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