Search for My Tongue and Presents form My Aunts in Pakistan.Compare and Contrast The Ways In Which Each Poem Describes Being Part Of Two Different Cultures.

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Intisar Mohamed 10.R

                                                                                                                         

Compare and Contrast The Ways In Which Each Poem Describes Being Part Of Two Different Cultures.

In this essay I shall compare the ways in which each poem describes being part of two different cultures. The word culture is a religion or a belief you belong to or something shared by people. A culture can be a Somalian culture in which we like to eat rice however I am also a part of British culture which I like to eat fish and chips. In my opinion I think it is important to belong to a culture because it represents you and what you do in your life. If you are part of more than one culture you will have a clash. The moral of a Muslim culture says don’t steal furthermore the school culture, kids may tell you to steal. We have been looking at these two poems exploring these themes. The first poem is “Presents from My Aunts in Pakistan”. This tells the story of a teenage girl who does not feel comfortable in the Pakistani clothes sent to her by her relatives but prefers wearing denim and corduroy, which are her everyday clothes in England.  

The second poem we have been investigating is “Search for My Tongue”. It examines about a young adult that forgot about her two tongues which means her two languages. The poet testify that she forgot her native tongue which is Guajarati and knows her foreign tongue on the other hand she feels uncomfortable talking at the same time using both languages. Although the poem is using the same metaphor, one talks about a young teenager who is confused in her own thoughts.  The young teenager cannot decide whether she is more British or Pakistani. The other poem called “Search...” debates about mother tongue and foreign tongue. A mother tongue is the language that you were born with alternatively a foreign tongue is a language that you learn by yourself.

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Even though the poems have many differences, they’re also equivalent because they both use a metaphor, which means when something is represents things we cannot see, hear, touch, taste and smell because they are abstract. An example would be a fire which symbolizes anger or exasperation. However, the metaphors are conflicting in each poem. “In Presents from My Aunts in Pakistan” it is clothes that show her identity and her culture; whilst in “Search for My Tongue” it is tongue which represents her language. I will introduce the poem by demonstrating how Moniza Alvi develops that idea that the young ...

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