Compare the ways that culture and identity are presented in ‘From Search For My Tongue’ and ‘Presents From My Aunts In Pakistan'.

The first point I would like to make is how both the writers feel that they no longer belong to a country. They feel confused to their identity and how to behave. In ‘From Search For My Tongue’ Bhatt feels that she has lost her mother tongue because she has to adapt to another culture and language ‘You could not use them both together even if you thought that way’ which means that even though she wants to be able to speak her mother tongue as well as the foreign one she can’t. This compares with ‘Presents from My Aunts in Pakistan’ because Alvi writes about how the girl can’t feel Pakistani even though she desperately wants to feel the transformation ‘My costume clung to me and I was aflame, I couldn’t rise up out of its fire, half-English, unlike Aunt Jamila’ this is when she tried on a Pakistani dress but immediately feels out of place and embarrassed. Bhatt uses several rhetorical questions to make the reader feel what she feels. The rhetorical questions also show Bhatt’s anger at having to use two tongues ‘I ask you, what you would do…’ I think that this shows that she doesn’t believe the reader understands how she feels and is angry at this.

My next point is that both the poets write about how they are in conflict with two different cultures. In ‘Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan’ the girl is in many conflicts throughout the poem including fashion ‘I longed for denim and corduroy’ and even views on animal cruelty ‘to consider the cruelty and the transformation from camel to shade’. The first quote shows us that even when she has a choice between beautiful Pakistani dresses and plain denim she picks the denim just to fit into English life and culture. The second quote shows how even a lamp she considers to be beautiful can be affected by English culture and makes her consider how cruel it is. This is in the same way of ‘From Search for My Tongue’ at how she feels she can’t any longer talk in her mother tongue and that she has lost part of her identity. We can see this when she writes ‘You could not use them both together even if you thought that way’ this is similar to ‘Presents from My Aunts in Pakistan’ because both poems show the conflict involved in having to live with two different cultures.

In conclusion