The Lipstick on the Mirror #217 pg.283

The Lipstick on the Mirror has two sides to it. One is the allusion to Snow White. The author refers to the woman as the "Wicked Queen" and uses the sentence "Who is the fairest of them all". This brings a fairy tale essence to the poem. The other side is the consumerism and materialism shown on the receiving end of her mirror. Women and girls yearn to be as beautiful as her and buy countless products to try to achieve it, but they never can be as beautiful as the Wicked Queen. She is always the fairest of them all because perfection of beauty is a fairy tale.

There is also an exceeding amount of cataloging. The mirror advertises shoes, sapphires, pearls, ribbons, lace, foundation, etc... to show how ridiculous the plight to be as perfect at the Wicked Queen is. "Industries sprang up like bramble", they gain wealth from the imperfection of the general public. The women are consumed with the need to be like the Wicked Queen that they will try and buy anything to come close. This is a satire to the media and how the beauty industry works. One or a few beautiful women are portrayed as the ideal type and all others will try and follow suit, no matter the cost. These women feed the industry which allows it to become more powerful and warps their minds even more into thinking that they are inferior if they do not look perfect, or like the "Wicked Queen". Yet no one will ever be able to attain perfection and the industry and the Wicked Queen will always win and be the fairest of them all.

Richard Cory #271 pg. 327

Richard Cory is "richer than a king" and a "gentleman from sole to crown", he has everything that could be hoped for. The "people on the pavement" are shown as below him in status and circumstance and they regard him as the epitome of happiness. These people go hungry only eating bread and yearning for meat and wishing that they could be Richard Corey. It is the shift in the last line that shows the true Richard Corey, the person that the people would not want to be, the person that "put a bullet through his head". The shift has a significant role in this poem, because it denounces the facade of the man that "glittered when he walked".

The tone of the work also play a vital role. Words such as "gentleman" "clean" "glittered" "rich" and "grace" portray Richard Cory as what would be the happiest man alive. The mood is lighthearted even to the second to last sentence, "one calm summer night", The last sentence states that he shoots himself in the head and yet the line before indicates that the night was "calm" this irony of tone makes the last sentence a shock.

This poem is interesting because it portrays a rich man who has every material thing yet he is so depressed that he commits suicide, yet when he walks down the street he looks perfectly fine. The poorer people wish that they were him yet both are unhappy. Money appears to be the answer to the poorer peoples problems, but the suicide of Richard Cory proves that money does not guarantee happiness.