Search For My Tongue Essay

This sample essay on Search For My Tongue Essay offers an extensive list of facts and arguments related to it. The essay’s introduction, body paragraphs, and the conclusion are provided below.

From reading both of the poems I can see that both of the poems describe how they have either lost or are losing part of their identity. Identity can mean anything from our age, gender, race, personality, religion, social position, language or even personality. Identity is either what makes a person different from other people but some elements of your identity might make you the same as other people such as your nationality or religion.

Some of our identity can be set at birth and can’t be changed in anyway this could be race. Whereas other elements such as social position can continuously change throughout your life. Some changes in or identity we welcome and some we don’t. Both of these poems explore changes in their identity.

In Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan the young female is telling us how she is changing in the way that she lives and dresses whereas in Search for My Tongue the poet I telling us how she is losing her identity by the loss of her first language.

Search For My Tongue Summary

These two poems are laid out quiet differently, although they both use variable line length. In Presents from Pakistan the lines start all over the place and there is no certain point at which they have to start.

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In Search for My Tongue all the beginnings of the lines start at one place this is because the poem is left justified. This gives Search for My Tongues a stronger rhythm than it would have if it wasn’t left justified, whereas Present from my Aunts in Pakistan gives us a feeling that she is confused and doesn’t know where to start. I don’t feel as if either of the poems have a rhymes this is because they do not contain rhyming couplets or any rhythmic devices.

Presents from My Aunts In Pakistan seems to be much more like a conversation with either herself or with a close friend, but Search for My Tongue seems much more like a letter of complaint. In the case of Search fore My Tongue the poet uses her mother tongue and Cyrillic writing and English character in her language. This emphasises both of the tongues. In Presents form My Aunts in Pakistan she is often putting the adjective after the noun. This defers from the standard English language. In both of the poems there is lots of punctuation missing. Both of these poets don’t feel as if the punctuation is really important to emphasis the problems about their identity. Presents from My Aunts in Pakistan tells us where she comes from whereas Search for My Tongue don’t tell us where she came from and leaves it a mystery.

The words used in the poem Presents from My Aunts in Pakistan are more vibrant than words used in the poem Search for My tongue. This is intended to give you a mental image of the clothes and the place at which as is living in. In Search For My Tongue the words tend to be darker and angrier this is so we can understand how she is feeling. ‘ Your mother tongue would Rot, Rot and die in your mouth’ as you can see these words are powerful and meaningful this is show we draw attention to what she is saying.

Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan explores the theme of identity and places remembered, but Search For My Tongue explores the theme of identity through language and continues to use an extended metaphor throughout the poem by talking about a flower blossoming in her mouth when she is able to speak her mother tongue and explain how a flower dying in her mouth is what it feels like when she in un-able to speak with her mother tongue. Search for My Tongue uses cultural-specific words separate from the rest of the standard English used in the poem. This is to make sure that we pay more attention to the poem and try to understand why she has done it.

In Presents from My Aunts in Pakistan she uses the cultural-specific words all over the place as if she doesn’t know she is doing it and she expects you to know what the words mean already. An example of this would be Salwer Kameez which would mean nothing to a young English person but means a traditional garment to the people living in Pakistan. In the poem Search for My Tongue the words ‘Spit It’ is a slight use of assonance, but there is no other in this poem. There is a miner use of alliteration in Presents from My Aunts in Pakistan such as ‘ Satin-Silken’ and ‘Costume Clung’. This makes these words stand out from the rest catching out eye. Neither of these poems contain personification.

The feelings of the authors of the poems are similar in the way that they are sad about the loss of part of their identity. Search for My Tongue is asking the reader if she thinks they are to blame because she has lost part of her identity and isn’t who she once was . This comes across to me as if she is saying ” How would you like it if this had happened to you?”. She is very angry and doesn’t blame herself for what has happened to her.

The poem Presents from My Aunts in Pakistan is a much friendlier. It is like she is looking for help and is explaining her problem to us hoping that we can help her. Presents from my Aunts is explaining the situation. This means that all she is doing is talking to us but in Search for My Tongue is Telling us. This makes me feel as I am in trouble and that it is my fault for her identity problem. I feel as if the female writing Search for my Tongue is older than the poet who has written Presents From Aunts in Pakistan. This is due to the language used to write the poem and how the two poets express the way in which they feel about their situation.

Both of these poems were interesting and were enjoyable to read. With the poem Search for My Tongue I as able to empathise because I feel the same about me losing my Scottish accent. I feel as if Search for My Tongues has a stronger contrast out of the two poems this is due to the fact that I think the poet is a stronger person and is able to deal with her situation on her own whereas the poet for Present From My aunts in Pakistan is not able to cope with her situation on her own.

I felt as if Presents from My Aunts in Pakistan is easier for me to understand due to the language used in the poem. This is because the poet is a teenager like myself and I am able to see where she is coming from about having to were a piece of clothing which she is uncomfortable with. I can understand where Moniza Alvi is coming from because I feel I have the same problem with having to wear a school uniform even If I do not want to. These two poems made me think more about identity, I have learnt that identity can play an important part in our life and that we shouldn’t take it for granted because one day you may lose part of it and may never be able to regain it.