I Am Mirror: A Historical Critique Essay

Claribel Alegr? a in Nicaragua in 1924 and a year later her family was exiled to El Salvador because of her father’s support of Nicaraguan guerrilla leader Augusto Cesar Sandino, Alegria’s family was forced into exile by Anastasio Somoza, a Nicaraguan politician who later became commander-in-chief of the Nicaraguan army and eventually the nation’s president. Her poem I am Mirror was translated in 1978. And is the topic for this critique. In 1978 Alegr? a would be in the United States she left El Salvador in 1943 to study at George Washington University. From 1924 to her departure to the United States there was much violence in her home country in 1932 there was a massacre in which over a period of eight days thirty thousand peasants were estimated to be slaughtered by the vastly superiorly armed El Salvador army. The country also has vast disparity of wealth with one half to one percent controlling ninety percent of the nation’s wealth. The poem states: Water sparkles on my skin and I don’t feel it water streams down my back I don’t feel it I rub myself with a towel  I pinch myself in the arm I don’t feel frightened I look at myself in the mirror she also pricks herself I begin to get dressed This is identifying that wealthy portion of the population that controls 90 percent of the country’s wealth. It is describing their lack of humanity to allow the rest of the population to suffer in great poverty. The author uses this lack of feeling to question if their humanity has been lost. Given that Claribel was able to afford an American education like many of the wealthy amilies did it stands to wonder how much she associated herself with the wealthy. Perhaps it’s contributed by her support for non-violence and the poor given that she did come from some resemblance of wealth herself. In the following stanza it gives evidence that the character of the poem was wealthy: I wander through the streets: children with dirty faces ask me for charity The children could be desperate enough to be asking anyone but the character given that they were doing better than most at the time. But then again it does say paint a pretty desperate picture with â€Å"child prostitution† and â€Å"shouts like lightning bolts† Military enforced oppression was the times. The use of a mirror as a metaphor could also be alluding to the killing of one and wounding of five students protesting the government spending of one million dollars to bring the Miss Universe pageant to El Salvador. Of course during the program all that was shown were the beautiful sandy beaches and failed to show the massive poverty or military security around the contest. This is a portion from the poem: â€Å"I am a blank mirror that nothing penetrates my surface is hard is brilliant is polished I became a mirror and I am fleshless scarcely preserving a vague memory of pain. † This demonstrates how the government oppression and the atrocities resulting from the oppressive military rule were covered up by the government. Going back to the massacre of 1932 the government swiftly removed all accounts of the event from the libraries and replaced them with more favorable accounts. It was the way of life in El Salvador. The poor see much of the same everywhere they go poor. While rich control so much of the wealth they can afford to shield themselves from it. And the atrocities they never happened because the government says they didn’t. As it says in the poem: I simply reflect what happens at my side the tanks are not tanks nor are the shouts shouts The above demonstrates the denial that the people have even goes as far to describe them as â€Å"phantoms† with how they do nothing to change. Which leads me to one of my favorite lines â€Å"I hurt, therefore I exist† which is likely an adaptation of Descartes’s â€Å"I think therefore I am. † In this situation she is saying that the lack of humanity of those who are the oppressors have stripped them from their existence. Furthermore as you read the poem it seems as if the character is coming to an epiphany but then recedes back right after the stanza â€Å"I think, therefore I exist. † This is probably used to show how permanent the stories last in the media how quickly something like the killing of the student protester outside of the Mrs.  Universe can become a national headline and then slip from the attention of any news outlet. The symbolism of a mirror is also further represented with how a mirror project a current image but does not contain any of its past. In 1979 a year after this poem was translated and Alegr? a was awarded the Casa de las Americas poetry prize for Sobrevivo. It is also the same year that the National Liberation overthrew the Somoza government. She continues to write about El Salvador and Nicaragua politics and resides in El Salvador, Spain and Nicaragua.