Explore How The Poet Feels About Her Cultural Identity.
The writer of "Presents from my Aunts In Pakistan" writes of a confusing identity. Having spent some of her life in Pakistan and some living in England she can't place herself in one culture or another. She knows she can't really be half, but can't abandon either culture.
The layout of the poem reflects the writer's confusion. The paragraphs are uneven and the sentences change line abruptly, representing to a reader the feeling of disorder that the writer's life gives to her.
Both Pakistan and England are described in the poem. They are both given good points and bad points but a similar conclusion is drawn from both countries- that this is not the place that the writer feels at home.
At the beginning of the poem the writer describes beautiful Pakistani clothes, and we get the impression from her words like "glistening" and "embossed" that these clothes are something she treasures. Then, the writer throws in a shock to the reader that tells us that something is not quite right. She says "glass bangles, snapped, drew blood." This twists the opinion she shows of the clothes and jewellery. It turns them into something two-faced. On one hand these clothes are beautiful and desirable, but underneath the exterior packaging the writer sees these clothes as sinister and her physical pain and the symbolic drawing of her blood are used to demonstrate the anguish she feels at dressing like a Pakistani person when she know she's not. The text shows us that despite the underlying problems the clothes caused, the writer still tried to wear them to try to bring herself some peace. She called them "alien" and talked of flames rising up around her whenever she tried to wear them. The writer shows us how she feels at having left her old country by saying "I could never be as lovely as those clothes." I think this shows that she feels guilty at abandoning her country when it was war torn, and that she perhaps feels that she doesn't deserve the clothes at all.
