Carpet Weavers, Morocco - How Does the Poet Use Language to Represent the Plight of Working Children?

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In the poem ”Carpet Weavers, Morocco”, Carol Rumens portrays the social injustice concerning child labour. Rumens is able to incorporate various poetic devices to portray an image of the predicament in which the children are in. She does this by showing the contrast between children from affluent families and children who are bound to work as child labourers, specifically in Morocco. Rumens attempts to make the reader feel sympathy in the third stanza. The image of a carpet being tossed into the ‘merchant’s truck’ undermines all the hard work the children have put in. This conveys an image of the carpet being brought somewhere else to start a new future but the children's’ hope of having a bright future is futile. This makes the reader feel sympathetic as no one appreciates or recognises the effort that the children have put in. The poet then attempts to use irony by personifying the carpet whilst giving the children attributes of an object. This can be seen when the children are compared to ‘melodious chimes’ to describe their height whilst the carpet’s design is described as the ‘garden of Islam grows.’ The image of the carpet is associated with religion which implies complexity and welcomes of a religion to describe it’s organic and abstract middle eastern design give the carpet more life and suggests a future for the carpet. On the other hand, the children are compared to non-living things as they are bound to being carpet weavers. This make the reader feel concerned and frustrated that a non-living object is able to have a better life than the children that will always have an unclear future and are mainly going to work as carpet weavers for the rest of their childhood. Rumens then incorporates a simile that shows the Morrocan children’s limitations in the future and that their past is unchangeable. The simile ‘flickering knots like television’

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