How does Hardy in 'I Look into My Glass' move the reader to feel sympathy?

Authors Avatar by aleena_w (student)

How does Hardy in ‘I Look into My Glass’ move the reader to feel sympathy?

‘I Look into My Glass’ is a poem about old age and how a man reflects on his lifetime with bittersweet memories and is now waiting for his life to come to an end though natural old age. He feels his life has just passed him by almost like a day and I think this because Hardy refers to ‘noon’ as his youth and ‘eve’ as his old age and death.

In ‘I Look into My Glass’ two of the most effective ways Hardy moves me to feel sympathy is by the language and the imagery that he uses.

Hardy is always using ‘I’ ‘me’ or ‘my’ and from this I can tell by the language/words he uses that this is personal poetry and he is talking about himself. This moves me to feel sympathy because he obviously does not particularly like the experiences he is speaking of.

I also think the language used in the poem is effective because the words are simple and easy to understand. The poem may be short and simple but it has a powerful effect on those who read it, simply by the language Hardy has used.

I think the title of the poem, which also happens to be the very first line, is the first thing that makes me feel sympathy towards Thomas Hardy even before I have started reading the poem. He is looking into his glass, also known as a mirror, and is viewing his reflection. This could be a clever way of showing that although he is looking at his reflection, Hardy could be reflecting on his life by simply looking in the mirror. This makes me feel sympathy towards him because, knowing what a lot of Hardy’s previous poems are about; the life he is reflecting on will probably be miserable.

Join now!

Hardy describes his skin as ‘wasting’. This tells us that he has aged and he does not like this physical change. It seems he has not changed emotionally though because he does not appear to have forgotten his past. He has lost people in his life either through death or relationships that have not worked out. I can tell this when Hardy says:

‘And say,’ Would God it came to pass

My heart had shrunk as thin!’ ‘

He wishes his heart had shrunk too, just like his skin. This is where I feel Hardy uses clever imagery to move ...

This is a preview of the whole essay