Answer: it emphasizes the displacement of the speaker's family.
Throughout the poem, the author maintains an extended metaphor about swimming. As she tells us the story of how her family escaped the island, she talks to us about swimming, drowning, the beach, the pool, etc. This is intended to emphasize the displacement of the family. Alvarez feels lost and adrift, much like we would feel if we were lost at sea.
Answer:
"Come over here and listen to a story," said the aunt, when the bachelor had looked twice at her and once at the communication cord."
"In a low, confidence voice, interrupted at frequent intervals by loud, petulant questionings from her listeners, the behavior of the children here is obviously ironic ad children usually focus intently on things that interest them and which they like but here they are disruptive, they openly voice their discontent and their confrontationalstance with the aunt.
B. Her own
In Dickinson's poem, she and Death pause at a grave marked as her own because this poem is about how she would handle death upon when she dies.
Her people and herself were the working classes, comprised of both men and women.