Question

Read the excerpt then in at least one hundred words, discuss the tone of this excerpt from "Birthplace," and explain its significance in terms of the poem’s cultural context. What poetic devices help to convey this tone?

Answer 1

Answer:

The excerpt you were given is the following:

The first tick-tockings of my small heart

still alive in the chimney fittings

and in the crannies of the old bricks

and there still visible on the door and walls

is that look of shame,

my mother’s look at my father

and my grandfather

A choked voice murmured

“It’s a girl”

The midwife trembled

unsure of her birthing fee

and goodbye to the circumcision feast

The poem Birthplace was written by Iranian poet Tahereh Saffazadeh. The tone of the poem is affected by the Iranian patriarchal culture, which the author herself was surrounded by. The tone in the given passage can be described as one filled with disappointment, fear, and uncertainty.

Iranian culture celebrates men. Women are considered inferior to them and are treated poorly, and generally, men wish to have sons, and women fear for their daughters' future. Details used to describe the moment of a girl's birth convey this well.

The mother's look of shame directed towards the girl's father and grandfather reveals the tone of disappointment. She is ashamed because she knows that they wished for a son and grandson and knows that she is the one who will be blamed. The choked voice telling them it's a girl and the midwife trembling reveal fear is where the uncertainty comes from. The mother and midwife don't know how the men will react.

The literary device that most prominently conveys this tone is imagery. This term refers to the author's use of poetic and figurative language to help the reader imagine what is written. We can picture the room the girl was born in, her mother's look of shame, and the trembling midwife and hear the tick-tockings of the girl's little heart and the murmuring of the choked voice. This is the effect accomplished by the use of imagery.