Identity in Power and Conflict

Who tells your story. Agard carves out his own. The emigrée keeps her city. Dharker says we are paper.

The quotes

9 quotes, in the order they happen.

mind-forg'd manacles

Blake · London · power of humans · identity

Chains made in the mind. The people of London are locked up by their own thoughts and by the powerful.

turned into your skin

Dharker · Tissue · power of humans · identity

Paper that becomes skin. Maps, receipts and records are all thin. So are we.

I am branded by an impression of sunlight

Rumens · The Emigrée · memory · identity

She left her city as a child. Her memory of it is all sunlight. It is stamped on her.

There once was a country

Rumens · The Emigrée · memory · identity · loss

The first words. Like a fairy tale. The country she remembers may not exist any more.

They accuse me of absence, they circle me

Rumens · The Emigrée · identity · conflict

The new place blames her for leaving the old one. Her city stands behind her.

Dem tell me Dem tell me Wha dem want to tell me

Agard · Checking Out Me History · identity · power of humans

They taught him their history and hid his. The beat is a drum.

Bandage up me eye with me own history Blind me to me own identity

Agard · Checking Out Me History · identity · power of humans

School wrapped a bandage over his eyes. He could not see who he was.

I carving out me identity

Agard · Checking Out Me History · identity

The last line. He is making his own story now, with a knife.

he must have wondered which had been the better way to die

Garland · Kamikaze · conflict · identity · loss

He turned back and lived. His family never spoke to him again. The last line asks which death was worse.