Presents from my own Aunts in Pakistan simply by Moniza Alvi depicts an Afghani lady trying to find her cultural id and is exploring the issue of being torn between two cultures. This is throughout the poet’s experience of receiving ethnic clothing from her relatives in Pakistan, her tradition and contest is blended making her feel like the girl does not fit in in the community. The regular clothes are described carefully in order to express all their difference via British garments. Place is utilized to show how she feels unpleasant, trying on her presents coming from Pakistan the glass bangle that “drew blood.
The lady mentions feeling “alien, “half-English and having “no fixed nationality that are direct statements about the poet’s discord of personality and how your woman does not easily fit into.
Her family members try to encourage her to decorate the traditional ethnic clothes, talking about them with a lot of visual symbolism and colour depicting the clothing as seeking strange many to colorful for The english language fashion. “¦peacock-blue¦glistening like an orange colored split wide open, embossed house shoes, gold and black.
Even the jewelry that her relatives have sent her hurt and they are uncomfortable showing conflict in the two countries, “Candy-striped glass bangles snapped, drew blood. “Broad and stiff in that case narrow depicts that the lady fills uneasy or “stiff giving the impression that she feels just like she doesn’t fit in in the event she has on the garments her family members sent her. The last type of stanza one places the persona being a teenager displaying lack of independence and maturity.
The metaphor, “alien in the sitting- room is effective and displays how the lady doesn’t fit in in these clothing, she is a great outcast. The girl with insecure as the clothing is too gorgeous for her “I could under no circumstances be as lovely since those clothes-“. Desperate to fit into, “I longed¦my costume clung to me emphasises her feeling of suffocation. She is embarrassed of her identity, using her halloween costume she feels just like she “was aflame.
There exists conflict in her lifestyle, as she’d have to change herself if perhaps she desired to fit in however she would loose her personal identity, “to consider the cruelty as well as the transformation. Overseas words are used to reinforce the strikingly unusual clothes your woman wears “My salwar kameez. This is supported by the fact her clothes “didn’t impress the college friend and this adds to the feeling of her not really belonging in school and the community. Onto her own the girl does indicate and appreciate the clothing her relatives send her yet trying to peek her do it yourself in the mirrors gives the impression that she still won’t know what your woman sees “tried to glimpse myself. This kind of reinforces her not fitting in and sometimes finds her self-alone “found myself alone.
She describes herself not belonging simply by describing right after between the two cultures, as her “aunts in not getting sun rooms, processed through security from men visitors is incredibly culturally dissimilar to Western lifestyle. The discord in Pakistan that the girl describes reinforces the difference between cultures and in addition becomes confronting. This is backed again by poverty of her home country. In the last stanza she reinforces that she as zero identity which will never modify therefore she feels as if she will never truly fit in to either tradition or country “and I was there ” of not any fixed nationality.
Throughout the composition the poet person depicts an Afghani girl trying to find her cultural identification as she’s torn among her two countries. Her description from the two several, places, lifestyle and personality that she actually is trying to change too reinforces her not belonging to possibly culture or perhaps country. This is shown throughout the juxtaposition in the colourful image imagery of her clothing that her relatives have got sent her and the “denim and corduroy of the american fashion. The concept of the outfits differing is carried throughout the whole poem and in the finish is the reason of why the girl does not belong.
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