`In Exile` Outside History by Eavan Boland

Remembering in Boland 's In Exile

Boland 's poetry is visual and brings forth an image that triggers a remembering and a realization . In her poem , In Exile , we see these elements , the same that Richard York in his critical points out York 's work on Boland 's poetry is especially helpful in understanding this text , as it provides a background on the poet 's other works and establishes her style and approach in writing . Primarily , York analyzed Boland 's works and made a strong argument how she used the element of

time to effectively affect the emotion of recollection and the temporal .In In Exile , Boland describes a memory from her childhood , of the two German girls who helped them in the winter , who were also in exile although at the time she did not know it . She could not understand their language , did not know of their pain and hurt and anger when they spoke she only associated the images of her Irish home with those voices . Now forty years after , the persona has grown and herself in a foreign land it is winter too . And like those German girls , she does not want her speech to heal . What does she mean by this ? It could be that where she lives now her people are marginalized and their speech , their language is their only weapon to assert their identity . If she is the one now in exile , her language is the tool by which she can express...