Living Space Literary Elements

The poem is written in the third-person from the perspective of someone observing a living space.

The poem's three stanzas vary in length and are written in free verse. There is no delineated meter or regular rhyme scheme.

Metaphors
-The poem is composed of the metaphor that life and light will shine through despite challenging circumstances.

Similes
-"As if they were / The bright, thin walls of faith" (Lines 21-22): Eggs are compared to houses of faith.

Alliteration
-“or parallel. Beams / balance crookedly on supports” (Lines 5-6): The /b/ repeats.
-“Someone has squeezed / a living space” (Lines 12-13): The /s/ repeats.

Assonance
-"Of a slanted universe, / Gathering the light" (Lines 18-19): In the words "slanted" and "gathering," /æ/ is repeated.

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Urban Poetry

The setting is not specified in the poem, but Dharker has said that she wrote "Living Space" about poor communities in Mumbai.

Critical, Hopeful

The protagonist is the people who are determined to create a living space despite difficult circumstances. The antagonist is poverty.

The major conflict of the poem is that people have no choice but to live in dangerous living conditions.

The climax takes place when the speaker asserts that someone has managed to create a living space in the structure described.

By stating that the structure "leans dangerously / Towards the miraculous," the speaker foreshadows the hope and faith of the people described in the last movement of the poem (Lines 9-10).

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The poem as a whole alludes to the highly populated informal settlements of Mumbai.
The phrase "dared to place / these eggs in a wire basket" alludes to the idiom of placing all of one's eggs in one basket.

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The speaker personifies the nails that "clutch at open seams" (Line 8).

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