Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan - review

"my aunts requested cardigans from Marks and Spencers."

Moniza Alvi goes on to talk about "the school friend who sits on her bed." By using this quote I think that Alvi's friend is her conscience who is also trying to identify who she wants to be.

The things the poet may have wanted us to think about is how people manage to deal with cultural differences for example, another aspect of the school friend scenario may be trying to show how Alvi thought people may react in seeing her in her own cultural clothes. Teenage years is the age of 'identity' and an awareness of 'self'. Most 13 yr olds in this century are extremely fashion conscious and to be seen as different, one would stick out like a sore thumb. This I believe was Moniza Alvi's conflict. It would appear that the poet wanted us to see how important her peer group culture in England was, yet how important her ethnic culture was. However, the dilemma was which one she should represent with pride.

In the first few lines of the first stanza we can see that the poet uses "Peacock-blue and glistening like an orange split open" this simile is a very sensual simile and it expresses the exoticness and real beauty of the clothes. It shows that in Pakistani, their fashion is very noticeable and bright where as in England it is not so glamorous. That stanza goes on to talk about the "candy-striped glass bangles snapped, drew blood." This is an image that shows how uncomfortable she felt trying on the Pakistani clothes, it also relates to the fashion difference because it was much different to the English fashion. In the second stanza Moniza Alvi notes that her Pakistani Aunt Jamila could look lovely and bright in the clothes, 'rise up out of its fire' but she felt unable to do so because she was 'half-English'.

The poet uses both similes and metaphors in this poem to describe both the narrator's feelings and clothes. For example the poem is written in the first person so it therefore gives us a confessional wistful tone. The poet has chosen to write in free verse and without a rhyming scheme in order to give the poem its natural feel. We see that from the way the poem is set across the page, it shows emotion and feeling and it has a very powerful sensation to it because the words are quite randomly spread across the page. The tone I think that Moniza Alvi was trying to convey was, that when she wrote the poem she was quite confused about what she really wanted. When you read the poem, it sounds and looks confusing. The poem seems to be written in quite a thoughtful way.

The poem is a sequence of personal memories. I is repeated a lot in the poem. We notice that the English things are described in such an ordinary way and the Pakistani things are described in a very exquisite way.

In the third stanza the poet talks about the "camel-skin lamp" it says that she "wanted my parents camel-skin lamp switching it on in my bedroom to consider the cruelty" this suggests that the lamp was from Pakistan, and that she still liked the Pakistani objects. The fourth verse says that "her mother cherished her jewellery-Indian gold, dangling, filigree, but it was stolen from our car" this quote implies that if she was in Pakistan they would not have had their jewellery stolen, From this statement we can also see the contrast between the stolen jewellery and the "conflict" and the "sweeper girls" in Lahore. The conflict is brought alive via newspapers. This shows that there are faults in both countries which make it harder for Alvi to say that one country is better than the other. In the sixth stanza Moniza Alvi says how she "admired the mirror-work. Tried to glimpse myself in the miniature circles, recall the story of how the three of us sailed to England" this statement seems to be a way of recreating herself in the country she left. She Is trying to recollect how her parents journeyed to England. She remembers about the "tin boat" that she played with in her "grandmother's dining-room" it also says that she found herself "alone" the word 'alone' suggests that she felt very isolated also the toy boat echoes the boat that they traveled on from Pakistan.

In the fifth stanza of the poem the poet says that she "pictured my birthplace from fifties photographs." This confirms that Moniza Alvi had no real memories of her own, but had to use photographs. The sixth stanza shows some cultural difference because the women had to be separated from the men." sometimes I saw Lahore my aunts in shaded rooms, screened from male visitors," I think that to Alvi this may have seemed strange as the English are not usually separated from each other.

In the very last stanza Moniza Alvi says that in the photo's she saw there were "beggars, sweeper-girls and I was there of no fixed nationality" this phrase sounds very threatening in a way that she feels that she does not belong anywhere. It seems to her that there is no right place for her to be normal. The very last sentence is a very effective image to end on "staring through the fretwork at the Shalimar Gardens." It is quite symbolic that she stares into the splendor of the gardens at the fretwork which is forever outside. This implies to me that she does not yet know what culture she wants to follow but she is still trying to look and find the beauty of both places England and Pakistan.