Return To Polin And Manuai My Daughter Poem Analysis

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Question 1
In the first 5 lines, one can already identify that a mother is longing for her sons to return back to her. She gives a letter to the person addressed in line 1, who she most likely trusts to go and give it to her sons. She is asking him to please make sure it reaches the hand of her sons by saying the following “Stick these words in your hair” “And take them to Polin and Manuai my sons”. She also says “the ripe fruit falls and returns to the trunk – its mother” this is her way of expression her longing for her son's return as the fruit (her sons) should return to the trunk (parents). It is probably a very important act in their culture for their children to return back home after they have left the communities. The older people in the rural communities frequently plead for their children to come back home and look after their parents in the rural environments (Moffet 2013:243).

Question 2 …show more content…

This suggests how young and ripe the fruit (her sons) is which probably has led to them leaving their rural country and mother. The birds had taken them away from the tree (their rural community) to a different and probably a very far destination. The way birds eat and move around in seasons from place to place to look after themselves. Almost at the end of the poem the mother is comparing herself to a leaf by saying the following “Already I sway like a dry falling leaf”. One tends to immediately think about a dry falling leave as something fragile, old and has served its purpose on the tree. A swaying leaf can still be seen as alive while it’s floating in the air but when it touches the ground it is very vulnerable to external factors. It can easily be crumbled. The simile in the poem implies that the mother is getting older by the day while her sons are thriving. She wants her sons to come back home before it’s too

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