This how it works covers ⚙️ How Dharker Builds the Argument within Tissue (Dharker) for GCSE English Literature. Revise Tissue (Dharker) in Power and Conflict Poetry for GCSE English Literature with 10 exam-style questions and 15 flashcards. This topic appears regularly enough that it should still be part of a steady revision cycle. It is section 11 of 20 in this topic. Use this how it works to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.
⚙️ How Dharker Builds the Argument
The poem's central technique is an extended metaphor of paper, sustained across all eleven stanzas. Paper is not simply a theme or a symbol — it is the lens through which Dharker examines every structure of human power: religion, geography, economics, architecture, and finally biology. By keeping the metaphor consistent and developing it stage by stage, Dharker turns an ordinary object into a philosophical argument.
Light imagery runs through the poem as its structural thread. "Lets the light shine through" (stanza 1), "might float" (stanza 4), "let the daylight break through" (stanza 7), "thinned to be transparent" (stanza 10) — each appearance of light marks a stage in the argument. Light is not destructive; it is what rigid, opaque power blocks out. The poem's argument is that the structures worth having let light through.
Free verse with controlled enjambment is Dharker's formal choice. There is no rhyme and no regular rhythm — the poem is as unstructured as the material it describes. But the line breaks are precise and deliberate: "paper that lets / the light / shine through" slows the reader to feel the thinness; "This is / the tissue / that layers / skin" fractures the revelation into four suspended fragments. The form performs the argument.
Practice questions for Tissue (Dharker)
In 'Tissue', what is the final image Dharker uses at the end of the poem?
How does Dharker use form in 'Tissue' to enact her argument about power? [2 marks]