Fanthorpe uses the modern terms of “fancy”, “I mean” and “like” in order to enhance our image of a teenage girl who is simply interested in the body and wealth of her prospective men. This is emphasised through her fear that he “might have acne, blackheads or even/ bad breath”. This is very different to the simple woman portrayed in “An Unknown Girl”, who is certainly not money hungry, for she is prepared to share her exquisite and ‘deft’, a short word conveying swift brilliance, art talents for a “few rupees”, the dismissive ‘few’ re-iterating the unimportance of the money.
The general attitude of “An Unknown Girl” is slightly mocking of the “western perms” that the teenager of “Not My Best Side” seems to promote through her attitude. The “satin-peach knee” of the unknown girl seems to be the one thing that is noticed about her- but it seems not to be sexually promiscuous like the girl’s self-evident advocation of her body in “Not My Best Side”, but merely an off-hand description of the girl.
The two poems are similar in that they are both in the aura of a picture, Fanthorpe’s obviously about Ucello’s St George and the Dragon, and Alvi’s more subtly about the unfolding picture of the peacock, “spreading its lines”. The first is specifically intended to contrast with the picture’s ideas- the reversal of the traditional and stereotyped roles into modern ones, with a truer sense of personality for each of them. The second is in correlation with the cultural implications of the painting- the tradition of the quiet girl, who is to be seen and not heard, but also points out the new elements appearing- “Miss India 1993” and the “western perms” are pointed out, almost like intruders upon the serenity of India, the country “appearing and reappearing”.
The Fanthorpe poem does not seem, however, to have a central theme running through it like the theme of “India” and its culture that runs through ‘An Unknown Girl’. Obviously deliberate, the Fanthorpe poem continuously changes style and language, unlike the definite consistency that one detects in the Alvi poem, which is emphasised through the repetition of the words “an unknown girl”, almost like an echo, resembling the effect of the girl, the almost shadow effect that she exerts over the poem.
In conclusion, the poems are both deeply contrasting two different types of persona, that though so extremely different, are not mutually exclusive. The person who is at first a fleeting shadow may indeed be assertive and powerful, for Ucello’s portrayal creates an image of Alvi’s quiet, vulnerable “unknown girl”, but Fanthorpe’s poem shows her to be a powerful entity capable of her own dogma and reasoning.
