发信人: evilangelakasha(丽蒂雅)
整理人: roy_young(2001-06-09 11:53:33), 站内信件
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The Lipstick on the Mirror
For years the Mirror reported her doings
With every appearance of respect:
What is the Wicked Queen wearing tonight?
Where did she buy her adorable shoes?
How large are her sapphires? How rare
Her pearls? Girls throughout the realm
Would lap it up, gazing in their lesser
Mirrors to see themselves in royal attire,
Diadems of diamonds replacing buns
And braids. Her teeth and décolletage
Were the envy of women half her age,
Whose compact mirrors would whisper:
Crone, you’d seem chiseled of the same Parian,
With a milder soap, a better dentrifice.
Try these. Buy this. Inhale her fragrance.
Industries sprang up like bramble. Families
Grew rich from the sale of ribbons and laces,
Enhancers and foundation creams,
Hosiery and bras, as consumerse, enchanted,
Near and far, lavished endearments
On softer skin, more sparkling eyes.
In Bogota, in Marrakesh, among the Slovaks
and the Esths, the face of the distant
Sovereign began to melt and coalesce
With the faces of all women fair and rich:
Movie starlets, heiresses, cruel
Dictatrices, anchorwomen, teen murderesses
Able to sell their tales to Hollywood.
In powders and vials the Wicked Queen’s
Essence was suffused like a scentless gas
Throughout her realm, democratizing
Vanity. Ah, but still, insatiate,
She sits before her Mirror and crimson lips
Tense in a smile to ask her confidante
Who is fairest of them all, and still the lips
In the silvered glass reply, “Thou, Majesty, thou.”
The interprestation that can be taken from the surface is that of an evil queen sitting at her buearu, making herself pretty while she influences the other women of her kingdom to do the same.
Structure
The structure of this poem can be concluded as follows
One extended stanza
+ Free Verse
+ No breaks or unique form
+ The plainess contrasts the eccentrisies of the women in this poem.
Meaning and Idea
The wicked queen is being put on a pedestal as the most beautiful woman in the world. All the other women aspire to be like her so they put on all of the make-up and other accessories. When they do this, they are masking their true selves. They put vanity before all else and schedule life around it. The queen is the media while the girls are females in today’s society. This “mask” that they create to make themselves perfect is actually a barrier between their true happiness and personality.
Tone
Disch is being critical about women’s obsession over appearance
Disch disapproves of the media’s stereotype of the perfect woman.
His tone is dramatic, yet subtle (lines 5-How large are her sapphires? How rare/ Her pearls?)
The tone makes the impression that the poet is stating a fact rather
that imposing personal feelings on the readers.
Allusions
The poem uses allusions to present the leading force of media and its influence on women.
Wicked Queen and Mirror are characters from the classic fairy tale Snow White.
Rhythm, Sound, and Musical Devices
There is no specific rhythm, meter, or sound used in this poem.
Musical devices:
Near and far (line 20) are an example of consonance
Imagery
Imagery used in this poem is rich and diverse.
There are vivid images in the poem such as:
– mirror (talking to the women)
– wicked queen (withered old woman that looks young because of beauty products)
– wicked queen’s attire (make-ups, jewels, and laces)
– young girls tying to imitate the queen as they grow up in glamour
– wicked queen as a statue (line 12: “chiseled of the same Parian”
The diction is selected in a way that describes the scene vividly.
Figurative Language
This poem uses literary devices to illustrate its central idea of women gaining self-knowledge.
Simile: line 16: “Industries sprang up like bramble.”
This simile is used to describe the impact modern industries bring about on women.
Metaphor: None
Personification: the talking mirror (ex. line 12: “mirrors would whisper”)
Apostrophe: the Queen refers to the mirror as if it were alive: lines 32-35: “She sits before her Mirror and crimson lips…”
Metonymy: action of the poem-
Symbols: entire poem symbolizes society’s (primaraly the media’s) influence on women and their desire to be beautiful, which is a major entitlement of acceptance
– The Wicked Queen represents the media also, as the culprit who is urging all her loyal subjects to follow in her “adorable shoes” so to speak.
– The mirror is a reflection back on how people most often reply to outward beauty and appearance. “Thou, majesty, thou”.
Allegory: the moral of the story is that: what’s on the inside is what counts.
Paradox: None
Overstatement (hyperbole): line 31-“democratizing vanity”. Who would ever make vanity the national symbol?
Understatement: None
Irony: lines 31-32: its ironic that the ladies are adding so much make-up to be perfect when they will never be satisfied.
----
I never had a dream come true, until the day that I found
you. Even though I pretended that I moved on, you have
always been the one... I never found the words to say -
you're the one i think about each day. And i know that no
matter where love takes me to, a part of me will always be with you...
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