I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful---
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
1. Identify how this poem meets the criteria of a dramatic poem. State who the speaker is. Refer to the notes you receive in class.
This is a dramatic poem because one character speaks aka the mirror. The speaker or the mirror is telling the story of an lady turning old directly. Its showing that the speaker is actually witnessing what is happening to the lady in a dramatic event.
2. Identify 5 images in the poem: State whether they are visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, or tactile. Comment on how the images reinforce the mood of the poem.
I am silver and exact-Visual-It is bright and shiny and exciting to see:
The eye of the little god four cornered-Visual-Shows the theme of how the mirror is able to take in all it is conceited:
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness-Visual-Every morning darkness and sad is replaced with happy and good:
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman-Visual-How the life of the woman came and went while staring into this mirror:
Like a terrible fish-Visual, Olfactory-Shows how the mirror really thinks this woman is an old smelly fish that needs to go away
3. What is the allusion in "Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me."?
The allusion to Narcissus who was a man who sees a reflection of himself and falls in love with his reflection; saying there forever he eventually turns into a flower. This is like the mirror who loves itself as well.