english literature Flashcards
search for my tongue (15 cards)
lost my tongue but it grows back ; every time I think I ‘ have forgotten …../it blossoms out of my mouth
the writer speaks about remembering her’mother tongue’. At times she thinks that she has forgotten it
lost my tongue
the poem considers the issue of speaking and thinking in two different languages :English and Gujarati ; Gujarati is the poet’s ‘mother tongue’. The phrase ‘lost my tongue’ commonly means ‘temporarily unable to speak but could also be interpreted as forgetting one’s language
you ask me what I mean
the writer directly speaks to the reader in conversational tone as if answering a question
tongue could be an organ and a language spoken with it
the writer speaks of the difficulties of having ‘two tongues in your mouth; the original language or ‘mother tongue’ ‘rot or die’ when not used as much as the alien ‘foreign tongue’ which she could not really know
metaphor
the poem is an extended metaphor with the ‘mother’ language represented as a flower in ‘bud that blossoms ‘ in the writers dreams. tongue growing back like a flower.
the repetition of ‘spit it out’
the language and identity of the writer is of no use to her unlike the ‘foreign tongue’ . The writer feels that the she has lost her identity because she thinks that she cannot remember her cultural heritage : search for my tongue
lived in a place you had to /speak a foreign language
there is a suggestion that the writer’s true identity must be hidden and not used
this is a free verse poem and the structure of the poem is in 3 parts, demonstrating its centre of her identity
the first part expresses the difficulty of having two languages and not using the mother tongue enough;
in the second paragraph ideas are expressed in Gujarati together with a phonetic version
in the final part the Gujarati section is translated and suggests that the ‘mother tongue remains and grows’ stronger in her dreams . The writer recollects her language in an affectionate way when it ‘blossoms’
alliteration
mother and mouth at the end of the poem
imagery
in the final lines the poet describes how her newly grown native language tongue can tie her foreign language tongue into knots asserting its dominance. the orginal depiction of duality is a clever use of imagery.
synecdoche
the whole way through the poem the word’tongue’ is used to refer to the speaker’s language . it is an example of synecdoche where a part of something represents a whole
enjambment
rot and die in your mouth
hypometric line
feel unfinished and end abruptly. you can call this a ‘the foreign language’
sounds spoken
colloquial
the speaker of the poem uses first person pronouns -i/me/my
show that she is speaking in quite a personal sense, she is exploring her own personal relationship with different languages she speaks
