'The Penelopes of my homeland'

'The Penelopes of my homeland'

1. Distances - separate things

2. 'of my homeland'

   • Personal connection throughout

3. 'silent labour'

   • Lonlyness

4. 'wove their own and their children's shrouds'

   • Joyless, preparing for death
   • Contrast, unnatural about weaving own and children's shrouds

5. 'that their colourful future was all in the past'

   • Contrast - poetic and fanciful

6. 'hopes raised by palm-readers'

   • Visiting fortune tellers

7. 'and to the just God//who does not allow such nightmares to continue'

   • Nightmares = killing of all the people
   • Changing onto a religion
     • Deluding themselves

8. 'Years and years of raising more Penelopes'

   • Bringing up another generation just wastes their lives

9. Language

   • Repetition
     • 'waiting', 'without'
   • Contrast
     • 'colourful future'
   • Alliteration
     • Hard sounds, harsh reality
     • 'their dream was dead the day it was dreamt'
   • Monosyllabic
     • Abrupt reality
   • Personal pronoun
     • 'my'

10. Themes

    • Wasting their lives
    • Living in a fantasy world

11. Stucture

    • 6 stanzas
      • First 2 - working
      • Middle 2 - growing
      • Last 2 - dying

12. Messages

    • Don't waste your life living for something that could never happen