Question:

Help me figure out the tone of this poem...?

by  |  earlier

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Can someone please help me figure out the tone of this poem?:

In the sudden mirror in the hall

I saw not my own self at all,

I saw a most familiar face:

My father stood there in my place,

Returning, in the hall lamp's glare,

My own surprised and watery stare.

In thirty years my son shall see

Not himself standing there, but me.

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7 ANSWERS


  1. I love it!

    The mood is shock, but then acceptance.

    Please read my poem?

    http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?...


  2. suspense

  3. line 6 : surprised, saddened

    line 6,7,8: helpless

    They beauty of a poem is that when you look at one, sometimes you are not trying to understand it, instead you are understanding yourself.  Since everyone is different, every interpretation is.  So no one is wrong.

    IMHO, This is a man who has suddenly realized he is in charge now.  All the responsibilities and the questions that were his fathers responsibilities are now his.  He has yet to realize them as his own.  He looks in the mirror and sees his father because part of him wants it to still see it be him.  So much so that he can not believe that it is him in the mirror and not his father.  His watery stare implies he is crying and is saddened.  Lines 7 and 8 imply the saddness because it has dawned on him that his son will one day suffer the same realization.  Showing his tone is also one that is helpless.

  4. Your poem is really impressive.

    I think that your not talking about image so much, but using image as a metaphor...which in turn describes character...how we are a product of our parents....and the watery stare expresses to me either sadness or joy, or both. I really think u are talented and would love to read more of your poetry. so as for TONE is to the point....a well painted work of art!

  5. Realization.

    This is how life is.. The author finally gets it.

  6. f*k poems dawg

  7. The tone I'd say is the sadness of awareness of change and aging, that we are all becoming reflections of our parents, as our own children will, in time, become reflections of us.

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