Carol Rumens' The Emigrée explores the lasting impact of exile and the powerful connections between identity and a place. The speaker reflects on a city they left as a child - remembering it positively, despite the fact it may now be dangerous or forbidden. Rumens uses light to show how nostalgia can preserve an idealised version of home. Themes of displacement, memory and resilience are present throughout the poem.
Nostalgia - the state of being homesick
Exile - the state of being barred from one's native country
Homeland - the native land of oneself or one's ancestors
Memory - recollection of past experiences
Oppression - unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power
Carol Rumens examines the concept of hope through the irrational yet optimistic perception of the migrant speaker who has been 'branded by the impression of sunlight' and affection despite war and tyranny in their homeland.
Rumens contrasts how the eye of childhood is unable to reconcile the horrific truth of war and tyranny in her homeland with the speaker's own idealised 'taste of sunlight'. It creates a body politic metaphor and emphasises the sympathy and connection with the character's homeland. The country is 'sick' and the disease is curable, despite the transient nature of a tyrant's power.
The ellipsis may suggest this country no longer exists in the form she remembers. She is desperate to portray the country in a positive light. Her view may be positive but she cannot deny that it is tainted and ruined.
The motif of sunlight is used to represent positive memories. 'Sunlight' has connotations of warmth. This positivity is juxtaposed by the brutal verb 'branded'. She cannot and will not shake her 'original view'.
This suggests that her former home was a totalitarian state and that freedom of speech was curtailed. The words she was forbidden to speak are still within her. She argues that she will have that language back in full again soon.
The city is treated as two separate entities. It allows her to metaphorically dance through the city as it is now. Ideas of freedom and restriction are juxtaposed. It is likely that such an action would be banned under tyrannical rule. Could this represent defiance?
Creates an image of oppression, evil and hatred. They are trying to maintain the utopian image they have forged. No matter how powerful the tyrants are, there is always some form of hope.
The use of free verse and a lack of rhyme or stanza structure perhaps communicates the speaker's lack of control.
It could alternatively show a kind of freedom that the speaker has in the moments of more positive imagery.