English Exit Exam

`Mirror ' is a double-layered poem : The mirror , personified and equipped with senses , sees and depicts its world in the most honest terms then we see our own world from the mirror 's perspective - how raw and tormenting it is . Why the author chooses to personify a mirror as the poem 's narrator is firstly because it is an object most closely associated with a woman who seeks to see what she really is (11 When she is young , the mirror cheerfully reflects and praises her youthful beauty , letting her contemplate on her own

appearance . When she is old , it cruelly reminds her of time 's meddling in her fading beauty and how life has passed and left her behind . Secondly , the mirror reflects the world just as it is - it cannot lie to us - and faithfully shows us all signs of aging , sorrow , pain and sickness that appear in our face

The theme of the poem is the effects of time reflected in the mirror , how it has drowned a young girl ' and makes a woman become an old woman . Adverbs depicting the motion of time are employed throughout the poem : most of the time (6 , so long (7 , over and over (9 , Now (10 , Each morning (16 , day after day (18 . The irony is deliberated in the difference between the mirror 's reflection and cognition of changes in the outside world . The woman who looks at the mirror is sad because her beauty and youthfulness are fading while her...