Study guide
Living Space by Imtiaz Dharker analysis (Grade 9)
- Institution
- WJEC EDUQAS
Indepth notes for the WJEC English Literature (9-1) specification.
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By: marielouiselilac • 4 year ago
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Living Space by Imtiaz Dharker (P.09)Narrative Living Space describes the living space located in the shanty towns and slum areas of Mumbai in
India, constructed dangerously so that it looks as if it might collapse at any minute.
Contexts 70% of Mumbai’s 22 million population live in slums, where there is limited electricity, clean water,
food, etc. Mumbai’s slums are the largest in Asia and huts are often constructed by scrap materials.
Imtiaz Dharker was born in Pakistan and her poetry often focuses on religion, faith and culture.
Themes Instability – The Religion – While Imtiaz Dharker does not acknowledge the existence
precariousness of the house of god(s), she does exemplify the benefits of living in faith and shows
serves a deeper meaning how it injects an optimistic viewpoint into otherwise particularly dire
about the instability of life. situations.
Literary Symbolism – the eggs are “white” but Personification –She describes nails to “clutch at open
Devices hang over a “dark edge”. This contrast seams”, using the verb “clutch”, a human attribute, to
serves to prove the boldness of living in create a more dynamic feel to the instability of the
such a precarious structure but also the structure. This creates a sense of immediacy which
eggs could symbolise life – fragile and explores how the structure could come down at any
delicate, but held up by “faith”. minute and creates a desperation.
Deceit – The fire stanza of the poem is set up in criticising the “problem”, which makes the final line
particularly surprising the reader as it is written almost like praise, describing the structure as
“miraculous”. The use of no pejoratives throughout reinforces this optimism and conveys the writer’s
fascination at these people as well as their own happiness, not hindered by these dangerous structures.
She doesn’t seek to criticise these inhabitants, but show readers that these people aren’t living tragic
lives, but happy ones – a rare perspective from a poem based around hard living conditions.
Key “Dared” shows the writer’s sense of wonder that people have decided to live here, with the eggs
Language symbolising their lives hanging in the balance. Like their homes, the wire basket is unstable and could
break down any minute.
The instability of the structure is reinforced with adverbs such as “dangerously” and “crookedly”
Form and Irregular line lengths and disjointed Irregular rhyme such as “that” and “flat” in lines 2 and 4,
Meter rhythm imply how the living space like how the “clutch[ing]” nails are barely holding the
has just be cobbled haphazardly structure together, these rhymes attempt to lend stability to
together. the poem.
Structure Enjambment – Enjambment is used The longest line, “The whole structure leans
throughout the poem to break up the dangerously” appears considerably longer on page and
rhythm of lines and with lines spilling echoes the nature of the slums and how they lean over
over into one another, this reflects the each other. This is done to give the poem that appears
ways slum structures lean over and on top precarious as the structure it describes, with lines of
of one another. different lengths jutting out like the “crooked” beams.
The second stanza is short at only three The first half of the poem describes the structure. From
lines, which makes it appear as if it is line 11 onwards we are presented with an image of
“squeezed” between the two larger something inside: people living in the space, and the
stanzas, epitomising the cramped nature of eggs hanging in a basket. This makes the second half of
the “living space”. the poem more hopeful, as if showing the power of
faith.
Lines 17 to 21 gradually decrease in length, which may the line 17 described the eggs “hung out over
the dark edge” appear to just out over an empty space. However line 22, being roughly the same
length as line 17, provides almost a base to the poem, epitomising the security that faith brings to
these people lives. It is, however, still “thin”.
Compare London by William Blake The Prelude by William Wordsworth
s with…
Quotations to remember
There are just enough … Beams
straight lines. That balance crookedly…
is the problem.
Nails clutch at open seams. The whole structure leans dangerously
towards the miraculous.
Into this rough frame and even dared to place
someone has squeezed these eggs in a wire basket
a living space
… curves of white the bright thin walls of faith.
hung out over the dark edge
of a slanted universe
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