Stanza 2 Flashcards
‘Spinster’
This is the label she has been given in society. The word suggests she is a lonely, unmarried and old failure who is isolated from others. She is looked down upon because she does not have a partner. The isolated minor sentence mimics this idea of isolation.
‘Stink and remember’
‘Stink’ suggests decay and rancid smells because she is still wearing her dress because she is stuck in the past.
The phrase suggests that this is all she does every day - she thinks about what happened and does nothing but wallow.
‘Cawing Nooooo at the wall’
‘Cawing’ suggests a bird like, inhumane noise, suggesting she is losing her ability to speak and therefore losing her humanity and going insane.
Capital N in the middle of the sentence shows the breakdown of her language. She is losing control.
‘At the wall’ shows she has no one to confide in.
‘The slewed mirror’
‘Slewed’ suggests warped and twisted. She is looking at a distorted image of herself, suggesting she can’t recognise who she is any more/what she has become.
Her identity was her marriage, so she no longer has a clear identity.
‘Her, myself’
Failure to recognise herself. She doesn’t know who she is any more.
