Girl Powdering Her Neck Group
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xdeyonx
Student
College - Senior
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gbeatty Teacher
College - FreshmaneNotes Editor
Posted by gbeatty on Sunday November 16, 2008 at 10:35 AM"Girl Powdering Her Neck" is first a description: these are the details of how a woman—specifically, a Japanese woman of a specific period— prepares herself for the day. After that, it is a commentary on several things. It comments on the artificiality of it all; look, it is saying, at the work that's involved, the artifice involved in presenting a specific appearance. It draws a parallel between the kind of self-scrutiny involved in putting on make-up and the self-examination involved in critical self-reflection: it looks at how they are similar, and how they are different. They come together, or they might, then they part. That's the meaning of the final haiku stanza.
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