Summary
Summary The tenant poem
- Course
- English Home Language
- Institution
- 12
analysis of the matric IEB poem the tenant
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The Tenant Notes:Biographical information:
Post-apartheid poet – there is now the space to move from
political protest to personal stories
Universal experience (went to Redhill school)
Meaning/Message:
The difficulty of letting go of love
How all past relationships and connections affect the next ones
(choice is ours)
Imagery/ Figures of speech/ Diction:
Extended metaphor of heart as home and previous relationship
as baggage/ marks left behind
Structure:
Irregular structure - disrupted life after break-up/ heart broken:
varied stanza length. Caesurae. Free verse. Quite stop-start
rhythm – not smooth and flowing.
Enjambment: flow of impact of past relationship into present
CAN’T SEPARATE THE TWO
CONTRAST to full stops where there is a sense of finality/ dead
ends of relationship/no hope.
Tone/mood:
Melancholy (thoughtful) . Sad. Scared. Hesitant. Yearning (long
for something)
, Tenant – a person who rents space
There is no room for you
“you” - Direct address to someone
Simple sentences = asserts/declares that the relationship is over.
in my heart. The only tenant
Caesurae
_______. _______
(breaks the sentence)
Breaks up the
relationship who ever lived there left
‘lived’ – in his house/heart
some luggage behind.
‘luggage’ – being compared to her love/emotions/memories
Its engrained in him. It still consumes him
‘luggage’- travel/temporary. She was never fully committed.
alliteration of the hard/strong/spiteful ‘l’ sound emphasizes the pain of her leaving.
‘full stop’ - the pause, creates a moment of process to think about her impact on him.
Should function as absolute finality but deep inside he longs/hopes that this is untrue
and she will come back.
Stanza: Enjambment of lines 1, 2, 3 show: the ongoing need to come to terms with
the end of the relationship/breakup. Her luggage is stunting his progression to move
forward and come to terms with it.
I didn’t evict her. She
‘Evict’- force someone to leave.
He didn’t break up with her.
Blame goes directly onto her.
‘her. She’ – non-specific pronouns create some distance/universal story/relatable/
painful.
‘full stop’- caesurae: literally breaking up.
simply left without a word.
she doesn’t offer him closure
he doesn’t have the opportunity to express himself
beg for her back/justify/redeem himself
‘full stop’ – finality
Stanza: breakup was quick/sudden and at her discretion
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