Compare the two poems, Presents from my aunts in Pakistan and

Comparing Search for my Tongue and Presents From My Aunts in Pakistan The writer, Moniza Alvi, reveals her past in her poem Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan. The poem shows the reader her feelings for Pakistan, the country she was born in. The line "of no fixed nationality" sums up the mood of the poem, that because she lives in England, speaks English but is from Pakistan, she does not seem to belong anywhere. The poem Search for my Tongue, written by Sujata Bhatt, is similar to Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan, The line "I thought I spit it out" refers to the metaphor the whole poem is based on, that to speak two languages, to be a part of two cultures, is just as difficult as speaking with two tongues at once. While both poems are to inform the reader about the awkwardness of being of mixed race, the authors go about it in different ways.

“Presents from my aunts in Pakistan” is a poem written by Moniza Alvi. The poem talks about the melee of living in two different cultures. Throughout the poem the writer depicts her puzzlement and frustration of being torn between two cultures. Moniza Alvi explains her awareness of all the challenges that she will undergo for being multicultural. After receiving presents from her aunts, Alvi realizes that she didn’t know much about her other half Pakistani culture.

Subject Matter What is Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan all about? * The speaker in the poem, who is of mixed race, describes the gifts of clothes and jewellery sent to her in England by her Pakistani relatives. * She is drawn to the loveliness of these things, but feels awkward wearing them. She feels more comfortable in English clothes - denim and corduroy. * She contrasts the beautiful clothes and jewellery of India with boring English cardigans/from Marks and Spencer.

Review of Presents From my Aunts in Pakistan The subject of the poem "Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan" is that, a girl who was born in Pakistan and who has been growing up in England in an English way of life. One day when she was aware that she is going to get some gifts from her beloved aunts living in Pakistan she expected to get some ordinary western style of clothes I.e. denim and corduroy, but unfortunately she received some Pakistani styled clothes I.e. salwar kameez, Indian jewellery and sarees. So, this poem totally describes how she reacted and felt towards the incident happened.

The poem 'Search for my Tongue' starts off in the past tense but later converts into the present, towards the end of the poem. Secondly, it soon becomes aware to me that, whilst comparing both poems, the poets have used their work to portray their emotional status' in response to almost possessing dual cultures. In 'Presents from my Aunt in Pakistan', Alvi concentrates on cultural dislocation, which is unquestionably the poets feelings about her ethnic background. From quotes such as 'half-english', 'Marks & Spencer's' and 'salwar kameez didn't impress the schoolfriend', I begin to picture that she is caught in the middle of fashion and popularity in England and her original, cultural traditions. In 'Search for my Tongue', Bhatt seems to feel that she is betraying her background by forgetting her mother tongue... ... middle of paper ... ...y felt, at some point, a loss of cultural identity because of their longing for a traditional life.

A Comparison of Search for My Tongue and Presents From My Aunt in Pakistan Search for my tongue and Presents from my aunt in Pakistan are two poems that explore from a personal viewpoint what is like to grow up in unfamiliar and different culture. Both poems consider the conflict that exits when a person tries to fit into a new culture. Search for my tongue considers what it is like when you feel you are losing your culture while presents from my aunt in Pakistan considers how to regain ones culture. Moniza Alvi wrote 'presents from my aunts in Pakistan'. She was born in Pakistan in 1954 but was moved to England when she was a young child.

In this, she is torn between the bland British culture she lives in and the more exotic culture of her aunts from Pakistan, who send her luxurious gifts she feels she cannot use in Britain. All three poems mentioned above involve a deliberate use of language to help convey their message, one of which is the use of imagery within the poem. The poems contain detailed descriptions to help the reader create a mental image, and hence they can associate more with the poem. In 'Search for My Tongue', Sujata Bhatt compares the growth of her tongue to a flower growing, describing it as "a stump of a shoot" and "the bud opens". This use of imagery makes the re-growth of the mother tongue seem mysterious and beautiful, as well as portraying how the tongue grows back, thus likening it to the development of a flower.

Physically, Mrs. Sen resides in America, but psychologically her mind remains at home in India. Mrs. Sen, who is a first generation migrant, chooses not to assimilate into American as she states on page 113, “Everything is there,” referring to India. For Mrs.Sen, Calcutta remains in her memory as being her true home, “By then Eliot understood that when Mr... ... middle of paper ... ...Westernized in Mrs. Sen’s dress were the over coat and the sunglasses. Lahiri paints a vivid image of Mrs. Sen’s appearance to display her Indianness to the readers, thus showing her desire to remain intact with her cultural traditions and her reluctant to change. Lahiri uses the private space of the home to portray to the readers the extent to which Mrs. Sen felt displaced in her new society and the strong relationship she maintained with her homeland through tradition.

The quilts were pieced together by Mama, Grandma Dee, and Big Dee symbolizing a long line of relatives. The quilts made from scraps of dresses worn by Grandma Dee, Grandpa Jarrell’s Paisley shirts, and Great Grandpa Ezra’s Civil War uniform represented the family heritage and values, and had been promised to Mama to Maggie when she married. However, Dee does not understand the love put into the making of the quilts, neither does she understand the significance of the quilts as part of her family heritage. It is evident she does not understand the significance of the quilt, having been offered one when went away to college declaring them “as old-fashioned” and “out of style”. She does not care about the value of the quilts to her family, rather she sees it as a work of art, valuable as an African heritage but not as a family heirloom.

The Ways in Which Culture and Identity are Presented in Search for My Tongue and Presents From my Aunts in Pakistan In this essay I aim to discuss the ways in which culture and identity are presented in 'search for my tongue' and 'presents from my aunts in Pakistan' The first poem, 'search for my tongue' is written by a woman called Sujata Bhatt who was born in nineteen fifty six, in Ahmedabad, India. She emigrated to the United States of America in nineteen sixty eight. She is a very successful poet and translator of Gujarati and English and if that was not enough she is now living in Germany. Search for my tongue is a very unique poem as it suddenly changes from English to Gujarati half way through. The poem is about language and the effect of language when living in a different place with people speaking different languages.