Tissue Flashcards
(19 cards)
What is the poem Tissue about?
The poem explores the fragility of human power and structures, using paper as a metaphor for life, control, and impermanence. It suggests that human systems (money, borders, governments) are fragile, unlike nature or faith.
How does Dharker structure Tissue?
Free verse – No strict rhyme or rhythm, reflecting the fragility of paper. Representing human inability to control their lives or nature.
Enjambment – Flowing lines mimic the delicate movement of paper. May reflect poets desire for freedom or humans inability to control nature
Four-line stanzas (quatrains) – Suggests order, but the last stanza breaks away (only one line), emphasizing impermanence.
What are the main themes in Tissue?
Power of humans vs. nature – Paper (human creation) is weak compared to natural forces.
Transience – Nothing lasts forever (buildings, money, borders).
Control & Freedom – Paper represents both control (maps, receipts) and freedom (flight of a kite).
“Paper that lets the light shine through”
Metaphor for transparency and fragility.
Suggests human systems should be more open.
Light = truth and religion, or nature’s power.
“Might fly our lives like paper kites”
Simile – Life is fragile and temporary like a kite.
Could imply freedom or lack of control.
“Turned into your skin”
Human connection – Paper (man-made) merges with skin (natural).
Suggests unity between humans and their creations.
Context of Author:
Dharker is a Pakistani-British poet who explores identity, migration, and cultural conflict.
The poem critiques rigid systems (borders, money) and suggests flexibility.
Islam may influence the idea of light (divine truth) and impermanence.
“pages smoothed and stroked and turned transparent with attention”
Tactile verbs (“smoothed,” “stroked”) suggest care and reverence, as if handling something sacred (e.g., religious texts or art).
“Transparent” metaphorically implies clarity or honesty, contrasting with the opaque, rigid systems (like borders or money) criticized earlier in the poem.
“If buildings were paper, I might feel their drift”
Fragility of Human Power: Buildings symbolize permanent structures of authority (governments, borders, religions). By imagining them as paper, Dharker undermines their solidity, suggesting they are as easily shifted as drifting paper.
Control vs. Freedom: “Drift” implies unpredictable movement, contrasting with the rigid control humans try to impose. The speaker desires connection (“feel”) to this fluidity, rejecting static power.
Nature’s Superiority: Paper’s lightness mirrors natural forces (wind, light), which outlast man-made constructs—a link to Ozymandias’s desert eroding stone.
Metaphor (“buildings were paper”) – Reduces concrete symbols of dominance to fragile, disposable material.
“the marks / that rivers make, roads, / rail tracks, mountains/roads.”
Listing: Emphasizes humanity’s obsession with dominating nature (e.g., borders, infrastructure).
Oxymoron: “Mountains/roads” juxtaposes natural permanence with man-made intrusions.
“find a way to trace a grand design/ with living tissue, raise a structure/ never meant to last”
Paradox of Human Creation: The line critiques humanity’s obsession with building permanent structures (governments, borders, economies) using ephemeral materials (“living tissue” = human life).
The ‘grand design’ could refer to the way a life is built, each being unique and ‘grand’ in its own way, yet ‘never meant to last.’
Futility of Power: The phrase “never meant to last” suggesting all human systems are doomed to decay.
Biological vs. Constructed: “Living tissue” (natural, fragile) contrasts with “structure” (artificial, rigid), highlighting our unnatural desire for control.
The shift from “paper” to “living tissue” metaphorically replaces artificial systems with human vulnerability.
“Thinned to be transparent” suggests identity/structures becoming so fragile they reveal our shared humanity.
What does tissue mean?
Tissue refers to Human skin or Human power and comparing it to the fragility of paper
Significance of the Koran/Qu’ran
Symbol of Immortal Knowledge vs. Temporary Power
Contrast with Political Systems:
The Koran is juxtaposed against fragile human constructs like “credit cards” and “borderlines.” While man-made systems decay, the Koran represents timeless wisdom that “lets the light shine through.”
Dharker, a Muslim-born poet, uses the Koran to personalize the poem’s critique. Its inclusion suggests faith as an alternative to corruptible political/economic systems.
The Koran’s pages are “turned transparent with attention,” implying that truth emerges through engagement—unlike opaque structures of control (e.g., governments).
Dharker found her father’s Koran after his death, making it a symbol of personal and collective memory. This mirrors the poem’s focus on what endures (faith, ideas) vs. what fades (power, money).
Theme of Human Power:
In Tissue, Dharker presents human power as fragile yet transformative, using paper as a metaphor for man-made systems like money and maps. The imagery of light piercing paper (“let the daylight break through capitals”) reveals the impermanence of human control, while delicate verbs (“smoothed,” “thinned”) emphasize our futile attempts to impose order. The poem’s free verse structure mirrors this fluidity, suggesting true power lies in adaptability rather than rigid structures. Unlike Ozymandias’s bleak ruins, Tissue offers hope - our fragility becomes our strength when we embrace it.
Theme of the Power of Nature
In Tissue, Dharker presents nature as the ultimate force that exposes the fragility of human power. The recurring motif of light (“the sun shines through their borderlines”) symbolizes nature’s ability to penetrate and dissolve man-made constructs like maps and money, revealing their artificiality. Unlike the rigid structures humans create (“monoliths”), nature operates organically. The poem’s final image of paper “thinned by age or touching” mirrors nature’s gradual erosion of human systems, reminding us that all human endeavours eventually yield to natural forces. Ultimately, Dharker suggests nature holds true power - not through domination like human systems, but through its patient, inevitable persistence.
Theme of Identity:
In Tissue, Dharker explores identity as something fluid and interconnected rather than fixed. The poem suggests our identities are built from fragile, man-made constructs like “receipts” and “maps” that claim to define us but ultimately prove temporary. The image of paper “thinned by age or touching” symbolizes how identities wear down and blend together over time. Significantly, Dharker presents identity as transparent - when “the sun shines through” these human documents, it reveals their artificiality, suggesting our true selves exist beyond bureaucratic labels. The final metaphor of building with “living tissue” rather than paper proposes a more organic concept of identity, one that breathes, changes and connects us to others.
Compare the ways poets present the power of humans in ‘Tissue’ and in one other
poem from ‘Power and Conflict’.
The Fragility of Human Power: A Comparison of ‘Tissue’ and ‘Ozymandias’
Both Tissue by Imtiaz Dharker and Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley explore the theme of human power, but they present it in strikingly different ways. While Tissue suggests that human power is fragile and transient, Ozymandias mocks the arrogance of those who believe their dominance will last forever. Through their use of structure, imagery, and language, both poets challenge the illusion of human control. However, Dharker offers a more hopeful perspective on human impermanence, whereas Shelley delivers a stark warning about the futility of pride.
In Tissue, Dharker presents human power as delicate and temporary. The poem uses paper as an extended metaphor for man-made systems such as money, maps, and religious texts, which claim authority but are ultimately flimsy. The free verse structure and enjambment reflect the instability of these constructs, with lines flowing unpredictably like wind through pages. Key quotes such as “Paper that lets the light shine through” and “Maps too. The sun shines through their borderlines” use light as a symbol of truth, exposing the artificiality of human control. The final image of “buildings with living tissue” presents a paradox, suggesting that true power lies in adaptability rather than rigidity. Dharker’s multicultural background, having been born in Pakistan and raised in Britain, informs her critique of rigid systems like borders and laws, which claim permanence but are, like paper, easily reshaped.
In contrast, Ozymandias portrays human power as arrogant and doomed. Shelley, a Romantic poet critical of tyranny, wrote the poem as a response to British imperialism and the fall of dictators. The poem depicts a ruined statue of Ramses II, whose boastful inscription, “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”, is ironically surrounded by a barren desert. The fragmented imagery of “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone” underscores the collapse of power, while the alliteration in “The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed” emphasizes the ruler’s cruelty and ego. The sibilance in “The lone and level sands stretch far away” mimics the inevitable creep of time, erasing human legacy. Written in 1817 during a period of political upheaval following the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, the poem serves as a warning that no empire lasts forever.
The structural techniques in both poems reinforce their themes. Tissue employs free verse and enjambment to mirror the fluidity of power and the dissolution of man-made systems. In contrast, Ozymandias subverts the traditional sonnet form, often used for love poetry, to mock the ruler’s failed grandeur. Both poems use natural forces—light in Tissue and sand in Ozymandias—to dwarf human power, but their tones differ significantly. While Tissue ends on a note of hope with the image of “living tissue,” Ozymandias concludes with bleak irony: “Nothing beside remains.”
Ultimately, both poems agree that human power is temporary, but they offer different perspectives on this inevitability. Tissue suggests that adaptability and interconnectedness can redeem human impermanence, whereas Ozymandias delivers a cautionary tale about the dangers of hubris. Dharker’s perspective is quietly revolutionary, emphasizing the potential for change, while Shelley’s is brutally dismissive, reminding readers that all dominance fades. Together, these poems demonstrate that whether through nature’s patience or time’s cruelty, human power is always fleeting.
Comparisons with Ozymandias
- Transience of Human Power
Similarity: Both poems show human power as temporary, dwarfed by natural forces.
Tissue: “The sun shines through their borderlines”
Analysis: Light exposes the fragility of man-made systems (maps, money), suggesting nature’s supremacy.
Ozymandias: “Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal Wreck”
Analysis: The ruins emphasize time’s power to erase even the “King of Kings.”
Difference: Dharker offers hope (“buildings with living tissue”), while Shelley mocks hubris (“Look on my Works… despair!”).
Critique of Arrogance
Similarity: Both mock human delusions of control.
Tissue: “Maps too. The sun shines through”
Analysis: Borders (symbols of political power) are rendered meaningless by nature.
Ozymandias: “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings”
Analysis: The ruler’s boastful inscription is ironic, as only ruins endure.
Similarity: Both use form to undermine human power.
Tissue: Free verse and enjambment (“let the daylight break / through”)
Analysis: Mirrors the fluidity of power dissolving.
Ozymandias: Sonnet subverted (14 lines mocking tyranny, not love).
Analysis: Breaks conventions to mirror the ruler’s failed legacy.
points:
Paper as Power & Fragility
The poem explores how paper (tissue, maps, receipts) symbolizes human systems of control (religion, finance, borders).
These systems are illusions: “like paper kites”—seemingly powerful but fragile.
Light as Divine/Natural Force
Thin religious paper (“lets the light shine through”) connects to Dharker’s Muslim-Calvinist background.
Light represents both God (“Allah is the Light”) and nature overpowering man-made structures (“sun shines through borderlines”).
Structure & Message
Free verse mirrors the instability of human power.
Final line (“turned into your skin”) ties human tissue to paper, emphasizing shared vulnerability.
Context:
Dharker’s multicultural identity (Pakistani-Scottish) informs her critique of rigid systems.
The poem argues that true power lies in nature/adaptability, not human constructs.
