living space

Question 1

overview

Answer 1

Living Space describes the slums in Mumbai and the overcrowded conditions that people living there have to face. She is a modern poet so she is describing ongoing world situations and current issues. At first, she describes the buildings in the slums, specifically the buildings on the verge of collapse, which helps to suggest how survival isn’t easy for people who live there. Although the slums are terrible, the poem is hopeful which is shown through the metaphor of the eggs in the basket. This is because the people Dharker describes have faith in their religion which makes them strong and resilient as they are surviving in such terrible conditions. Therefore, the overall mood is positive.

Question 2

beginning

Answer 2

• Dharker starts by describing the buildings in the slums. The ‘beams balance crookedly.’ This suggests how the building isn’t safe as it is falling down due to not being built well. This helps to suggest how the people living here have to make do with the little resources that they have because they are poor. However, it could also suggest how the people have no structure to their lives as they don’t have a secure plan of their buildings. This helps to demonstrate how disorganised and chaotic their lives must be as they cannot afford to plan ahead.
• She describes how ‘nails clutch at open seams.’ This suggests how the nails are the only thing keeping the structures together. However, the nails are personified to be ‘clutching’ which suggests how the nails are desperate to hold everything together because it sounds like they are grasping at the seams. This could be a metaphor to represent the people living in these slums who are trying to hold onto their lives. This metaphor helps to shed light on how hard it must be for people to live in a place like this which is so disorganised and dangerous.

Question 3

middle

Answer 3

• She describes the slums as a ‘rough frame.’ This suggest how people aren’t meant to be living there because it’s not safe. The word ‘rough’ emphasises how unplanned the slums were and how rushed the building of it would be. Despite this, it suggests how resilient the people living there must be as they are still continuing to live in such poor conditions.

Question 4

end

Answer 4

• Dharker then describes eggs in a basket. She describes them to be ‘fragile.”This suggests how the eggs are easily broken. This could represent the lives of the people living in the slums because their lives can also be easily broken like the eggs can be.
• Finally, she says that the eggs are ‘bright, thin walls of faith.’ The fact that the eggs are described as ‘thin’ emphasises how fragile the eggs are. However, the eggs could be a metaphor for religion and how it can be hard to keep faith in such poor conditions and when you are struggling. It suggests how religion is a symbol of hope for the people living in the slums because the eggs are ‘shining’. The fact that by the end of the poem the eggs are unbroken suggests how their faith in religion is undamaged.

Question 5

form & structure

Answer 5

• Uses lots of enjambment to show how the buildings and the eggs are hanging precariously over the edge. This helps to emphasise how nothing is safe or secure in the slums.
• The second stanza only has three lines which suggests how everything in the slums is squeezed into a tight space.
• Dharker constantly uses the metaphor of the slums to represent how unstable people’s lives are.