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Compare Disabled And An Unknown Girl

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How do Disabled and An Unknown Girl convey the sense of personal identity?

Our personal identity shapes who we are or shall become, it is how a person sees them self, fitting into their surroundings. Both Owen and Alvi explore the unpredictable personal identity of a person and how it changes their lives for the worse in their poems Disabled and An Unknown Girl. The former poem, filled with pathos, demonstrates a soldier’s joyful life prior to and after WWI where he suffered a devastating tragedy, losing all his limbs, emphasizing his deformed personal identity throughout the poem. The latter, however, depicts a cultural visitor experiencing India in hopes of fulfilling her somewhat incomplete heritage (and thus, personal identity), in which …show more content…

This peacock symbolizes how the bird is inviting the poet to a new experience, “I have new brown veins”, a new culture, gradually building up to reform her personal identity; this is reinforced especially as the national bird of India is a peacock, signifying a real, genuine connection between the persona and India. The overall message portrayed is that the persona is trying to grasp on to a NEW personal identity, loathing her current Western one. This ‘need’ for a different personal identity is clearly contrasted by Owen in Disabled where the persona expresses his regret (of joining the war) and animosity towards his new personal identity by opening the poem with a sense of pessimism and depression. This is firstly done through the emotionless verbs such as “sat”, “waiting”, and “shivered” which imply that the man has nothing to look forward to as his manhood, vigor, and dignity have all been robbed of him. In addition, the truncated, broken order of the poem shadows the soldier’s …show more content…

The persona illustrates his former personal identity in Disabled and the persona in An Unknown Girl portrays the breathtaking views around her as she imaginatively experiences India. “And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim”, the persona in Disabled describes; this use of alliteration indicate that the majority of the persona’s identity was made up of his appeal to women. “His face was younger than his youth” reveals a young man’s life with a bright future ahead of him. The sense of a pleasant past is reinforced when “soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers” which emphasises the joyous idea of joining the war, although naïve and fallacious. “He thought of jeweled hilts, for daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes; and care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears; Espirit de corps; and hints for young recruits”. This list of numerous optimistic ambitions, irrelevant to the war itself suggests that the persona was deluded by the glorified image of war. Rather than being aware of the tragic reality, he joined the war selfishly and out of vanity for even “Germans he scarcely thought of”. The persona in An Unknown Girl contributes to the same exciting mood as she exhibits the scenery of India as it becomes a part of her personal identity. “In the evening bazaar, studded with neon” portrays the idea of the persona discovering a new, colourful identity since this is

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