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Summary. ‘ An Unknown Girl’ by Moniza Alvi speaks about an intense connection between an “unknown girl,” a bazaar, and Indian culture. The poem begins with the speaker sitting in a marketplace getting a henna tattoo from an “unknown girl,” this girl, like the speaker, is never named or described in greater detail.
- Female
- October 9, 1995
- Poetry Analyst And Editor
The best An Unknown Girl study guide on the planet. The fastest way to understand the poem's meaning, themes, form, rhyme scheme, meter, and poetic devices.
Oct 7, 2023 · 'An Unknown Girl' explores the idea of belonging and identity through personal narrative, repetition and cultural allusion. However, the ending is ambiguous, the speaker uncertain of who she is, wanting to retain that feeling she had when the design was fresh and she and the unknown girl were one.
Many of Moniza Alvi’s poems draw from her experiences as a mixed race woman, born in Pakistan but brought up in England. In this poem, the narrator, who could be Alvi herself, describes the ...
May 28, 2021 · May 28, 2021. Moniza Alvi is a Pakistani-British poet and writer. Her poetry records the condition of growing up half-Pakistani and half-British in England, and the sense of conflict which arises as a result. An Unknown Girl focuses on personal identity and sense of belonging through the simple action of a girl painting a henna design on the ...
The poet discusses a memory from when she was in India. One one occasion, she chose to have henna placed onto her hand and her arm by an ‘unknown girl’. She experiences many emotions in that moment and she discusses them in the poem.
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‘An Unknown Girl’ is a poem by Moniza Alvi, who was born in Pakistan but who grew up in England, and there is a sense of being split between two worlds in the poem. Alvi focuses on themes of personal identity and belonging through a description of a girl being paid a few rupees to henna the speaker’s hand.
