Towards the end of the poem, the persona portrays a strong image of an outsider where she explains how she never feels in place. She says, “And I was there – of no fixed nationality, staring through the fretwork at the Shalimar Gardens.” The Shalimar Gardens are a major symbol of Pakistan, and so by saying that she is staring at them through fretwork, she is conveying that her view on Pakistan is that of a foreigner, which again shows how she doesn’t feel she can classify herself as Pakistani. This demonstrates how the fact that she is ‘of no fixed nationality’ strongly influences how she feels she should look at the two cultures she is torn between, and it is as if she would feel guilty to say she belongs to either, hence why she is looking at Pakistan through fretwork – which is perhaps a safety zone for her.
The structure of the poem is free-verse, with no rhyming pattern or regularity with syllables in the verses. This lack of correspondence in the structure may suggest that there is no similarity between the two cultures, and by using such a disordered layout the persona is illustrating the confusion present in her mind. For example, the fifth stanza is fifteen lines long where she is explaining her and her friends’ opinions on the salwar kameez and recollections from her past, whereas the final stanza is only five lines where in a way she is summarising up the poem and giving a brief analysis of how she feels – expressing her problem. Because the overall structure is generally informal, this may suggest that the poem is like a confession of the persona’s feelings, perhaps resembling a diary entry, explaining her problem of feeling she doesn’t belong.
The tone of the poem varies throughout, and whereas the start of the poem seems fairly upbeat with the beautiful description of the salwar kameez, it begins to come across as more negative as the poem proceeds. For example, se uses various colours and attractive descriptions where she describes the sari, however, where she mentions the Western clothes she only says, “cardigans from Marks and Spencers” – a very limited portrayal. This suggests that whilst imagining her Pakistani clothes she feels comfortable and capable of going into detailed description for the image is appealing to her. Alternatively, she seems to have little to say about the British clothes, with no descriptions about them at all. This demonstrates how as her mind drifts from the thought of her Pakistani clothes, her mood descends out of its cheerfulness.
Another tone created is that of confusion, and this can be seen where the persona uses a hyphen halfway through a sentence and interrupts herself. An example of this is, “I tried each satin-silken top – was alien in the living room,” where she stops halfway through one sentence to go on and say another, creating a sense of confusion where she doesn’t know what to say or how to say it.
In the poem, “Search For My Tongue” the persona is faced with the problem of feeling she has lost her identity, due to the fact that she has moved from her home country, India, to an English-speaking society. This over time makes her feel that her new ‘tongue’, or language, is taking over her mother tongue which perhaps was a link to who she is. The fact that she is losing this makes her feel a different person to who she was when she only spoke her one native language, Gujarati, hence how she feels she has lost her identity.
Throughout the poem the persona uses the metaphor of a tongue representing language, and creates the image of two tongues in her mouth, fighting to such an extent that her mother tongue is eventually killed and must be ‘spat out’. This descriptive metaphor conveys how she feels the two languages are incapable of being used together, and, against her will and out of her control, her second language eventually overpowers her native language until it becomes out of her reach.
The language used demonstrates her problem; an example of this is where she uses the metaphor of the flower in the final stanza. Through this metaphor she explains how whilst she dreams her mother tongue thrives and grows ever stronger in her mouth, and illustrates this process through the image of a flower in its early stages of life. She says, “It grows back, a stump of a shoot / grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins,” showing how she sees her mother tongue as a growing plant, an attractive image, suggesting she sees Gujarati as beautiful and thriving. The fact that she dreams this may imply that it is what she really wants, and where she dreams her mother tongue “tying the other tongue in knots” it conveys how much she really wants rid of this tongue. She then uses repetition where she says, “the bud opens, the bud opens in my mouth”, the bud representing her mother tongue, and this repetition may be emphasizing her point that even though she may think she’s lost it, her mother tongue is still there. The way she compares it to a bud suggests that it is young and fresh, and that even though sometimes it may die down and become weak, whist she dreams it grows back and perhaps renews itself.
The last three lines of the poem in a way summarise up the final stanza, where she states how every time she feels she has lost or forgotten her mother tongue, it ‘blossoms’ out of her mouth, again illustrating the image of a flower. The way she describes it as ‘blossoming’ creates positive, attractive imagery in the readers’ mind, and at the same time may also be implying that it is a natural occurrence, just as a flower blossoming, and was meant to happen at one point or another.
In the poem the persona literally uses two languages; her native language Gujarati, as well as English, where the first and last stanzas are in English, and enclosed between them is the stanza in Gujarati. As well as including the Gujarati, a language the majority of readers won’t understand, she also includes the phonetics and pronunciations of this language to allow the reader to be able to say the words, yet still not know the meaning. By doing this the persona may be demonstrating to the reader how it feels to be able to see and read something, yet for it still to have no meaning or significance, reflecting her own problem of losing usage of her mother tongue. The fact that she has chosen to include the original Gujarati as well as the phonetics may suggest that it is there for her own benefit, as proof to herself that she can still use it. It also shows the great contrast there is between the two languages, and to the reader illustrates her problem of how different and foreign they are from each other through visual aid.
The layout of the poem in a way resembles that of “Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan” and is free-verse with no set structure or rhyming pattern, illustrating confusion and informality. However, the fact that two out of the three stanzas are in English may imply that English is becoming the dominant language, and that she feels more comfortable writing in this language rather than Gujarati. There is more English than Gujarati overall, suggesting that English is taking over, emphasizing her problem that it is pushing aside her native language. Additionally, the last stanza is the English translation of the one before it, in Gujarati, suggesting that even though she is able to write the stanza in Gujarati, it no longer has full significance to her, and so she feels the need to write it in English for her own benefit as well as the readers’. Due to the fact that the poem ends in English, this gives the idea that it is perhaps the winning tongue and therefore the language she feels the need to return to.
The tone of the poem is again similar to that of “Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan”, showing confusion and worry of how she is frightened she has lost her tongue. Repetition such as, “your mother tongue would rot / rot and die in your mouth” where she repeats the word ‘rot’ emphasizes the sense of negativity she is feeling. This creates a sense of panic for the repetition and short sentences speed up the beat of the poem, building on the feeling of worry.
Another tone created is where the persona makes the reader feel empathetic by bringing them [the reader] into the poem by asking rhetorical questions such as, “I ask you, what would you do” and writing in the second person, for example, “You could not use them both together”. By doing this the reader is brought into the poem and put into the position of the persona, allowing them to understand more clearly her problem. By using the second person the reader is made to feel responsible, and perhaps even guilty for the persona’s situation.
Towards the end of the poem a sense of relief is expressed through a more positive description, and more pleasant language. The repetition at the end, however, doesn’t emphasize negativity like in the first stanza, but instead is used for reassurance. For example, “grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins,” puts emphasis on the word ‘grow’, reassuring herself that it’s growing stronger and more powerful.
The two personas from the poems have similar problems for they both feel they are, albeit in different ways, torn between two cultures – the persona in “Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan” feeling lost for she doesn’t feel she can classify herself entirely from either of the cultures she’s torn between, and the persona in “Search for my Tongue” feeling that her second language is becoming dominant over her native language. Overall, “Search for my Tongue” is preferable over “Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan” for even though it uses various techniques to portray different ideas, those of “Search for my Tongue” come across as more effective, and that the latter was also easier to understand. The fact that the persona in “Search for my Tongue” used her native language as well as English is very effective for it allowed the reader to put themselves in her position, allowing a better understanding of her view. Also the layout said poem appears more meaningful than that of “Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan”, for although they are both free-verse and representing chaos, the ‘sandwich’ effect in “Search for my Tongue” helped express the persona’s point further by showing English is now becoming the dominant language to her. The fact that the persona in “Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan” brought the modern world into the poem was a positive technique, for example by mentioning Marks and Spencers, the poem was easier to relate to, although overall it came across as more complicated than “Search for my Tongue”, and in the latter her problem was in fact expressed more effectively.
