The Looking Glass

‘The Looking Glass’ is a highly erotic poem by the ‘Queen of Erotica’ Kamala Das.
The
present poem establishes the mutual need of Man and Woman for physical pleasure.
Kamala Das presents a description of male and female bodies and the acts. through The
ironic tone and the irregualr unpoetic matter readers see the uselessness and
childnessness of such a lustful relationship.

This poem is about physical love between a man and a woman. . The woman in it is every
woman that seeks love, and the man is every man that wants a woman to satisfy his sex-
hunger. The poem faithfully reflects the mutual need of man and woman for physical
enjoyment

According to the poetess, a woman should be honest about her wants and requirements,
and then it would be easy for her to get a man to love her. She should not hesitate to stand
naked before the looking-glass with him so that he sees it clearly that he is stronger and she
is weaker, younger and lovelier. This will satisfy his male ego and excited his passion for the
weaker sex. In order to satisfy his male ego, she should point out to him that he is bodily
perfect. She should, in short, admire him for all his good points.
. She should offer him the scent of her long hair, the musk of her breasts. She should allow
him to have his fill of sexual pleasure. He would then feel that she is not only satisfying his
lust, but also hers. The poem is simple and straight forward in its diction. Passion seems to
leap out of every line. A sharp feminine feeling is at work here. There is a fine psychological
analysis of the male mentality in the first part of the poem, just as the second part is totally
covered by a feminine consciousness
Kamala Das advises the women to play a more active role in this foreplay drama. A woman
should praise the masculine strebgth of the male and should notice the perfection of his
limbs. She should also admire the arousal of passion in him – Freeing herself from
prohabitations , a woman should appreciate:
She should also make him feel that he is her ‘only man’ for sexual satisfaction.
A woman should be a full-blooded participant in the physical act.
She should gift him all – not only the poetic but also the unpoetic. Along with the scent of
long hair, musk of sweat
between the breasts, Her endless female hungers’ can be satisfied only after such full
participation and involvement in the act. Physical closeness is not a problem but it emerges
the tensions and complications . For a man, it is simply sexual encounter with a lustful
woman but she will suffer the trouble of emotional emptiness and lonely existence. It will
be a death-in-life for her. She will be once again among ‘strangers’, with ears hearing ‘his
last voice calling her home’ and her dull eyes which have given up all ‘search’.
Once she was all burning with passion, but afterwards, she is a unfortunate , dejected
woman davasted by disease and decay.
The poem is highly charged with passion and passion leaps out of every line . It is a
powerful call of the passionate relationship between the two sexes. The poet builds up the
passion step by step . The poem is rare in its unconstrained expression of female sexuality.
However, the beauty of the poem lies in its psychological perspectives and underlying irony
– the fine psychological analysis of the male mentality in the first part and the feminine
psyche in the second. But the poet is not completely obsessed with her passion . She holds
her awareness through the climax, the male-ego, the mutual need .
The poet has made clever use of alliteration throughout. Repetition of phrases like – ‘Gift
him, gift him’ .
The poem is rich in bodily imagery and body language. It can be compared with Sylvia
Plath’s ‘Mirror’. Plath makes the mirror a dramatic persona that talks. The strength of
Plath’s poem lies in her greater control of tone, language, verse and imagery and the
strength of Kamala Das’s poem lies in its passionate intensity.

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‘The Looking Glass’ is a highly erotic poem by the ‘Queen of Erotica’ Kamala Das.

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