Analyzing Alexander's 'Fault Lines'

Sophia Abdelsalam Mrs.Kratz, Period 8 AP English 11 16, November, 2009 Fault lines Analysis By understanding a country’s language, you usually attain a connection and comprehension of that place. However, with the diction of “odd shards,” it is clear that only painful barriers remain within Alexander. A “shattered” feeling is frequently expressed due to a lack of belonging to a single place. The many languages and cultures clouding her mind make it difficult to piece the bits of her scattered existencetogether. The hopeless and painful tone used as she wonders how to “ spell out these fragments of a broken geography,” further emphasizes her cultural confusions. Only the comforts of her internal ideal fantasies seem to relieve
the overall feeling of dissatisfaction and despondence. Her longing to be “ a bud on a tree…the tree trunk well rooted in a sweet perpetual place,” emphasizes the single and desperate desire for a true identity. This hunger for a perfect life leaves her “filled with ghosts,” and the ache left from false hope “is a choke hold,” restraining her thoughts and abilities to reveal her bona fide character. Meena Alexander is a woman who must sort out the broken bits of her being to reveal a singular and genuine identity. In the course of this expedition, Alexander’s deepest deficiencies are exposed as well as her desire for a sense of belonging. Alexander is a woman of many cultures and heritages, but this feeling of belonging to so many places at once, has left her not knowing where she truly belongs.