A Commentary on Ispahan Carpet - Elizabeth Burge

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Commentary on Ispahan Carpet: The poem Ispahan Carpet by Elizabeth Burge, on a literal level is a descriptive first person narration of the protagonist’s tour of a carpet factory Iran. Metaphorically, the poem compares the Western world with the values that are evident in the carpet factory. The poem also criticises child labour as a method of labour, showing the negative effects on the children, despite the beauty of that which they are creating. Through a range of poetic devices, the speaker conveys these ideas in the poem. Burge’s criticism of child labour, and reflection of the differences between the Western world and the Persian family, is demonstrated through structural features. Firstly, the poem is written in a first person perspective, presumably from the perspective of a tourist or Burge herself touring an Ispahan carpet factory, as indicated by the presence of the guide in the poem. The use of ‘my’, and the Western, removed perspective provides the contrast between the Western Culture and the Persian world. The repetitive labour that the children are enduring is represented through the use of parallelism in the third stanza, with each sentence beginning with one hundred knots. The author is clearly trying to represent, using repetition, the monotonous nature of the task. Phonologically, the monotonous tone has a similar effect on the reader, and so the is brought into the diegetic world created by the speaker. The author also represents similar ideas through the use of specific language choice. The use of modifiers in the first stanza, representing the ‘gallows’, a Western term, with the ‘silent, sallow, dark-eyed Persian family’, is a clear representation of contrast between them and the Western world. Burge also uses specific diction to highlight her points. The use of the word ‘web’ in the last line of the first stanza has an ambiguous and
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