what do yje words 'ice- block-cold eyes' mean in the poem 'once upon the time
Answers
Explanation:
The poet is gripped with deep sorrow for himself and the society that has long abandoned honesty. People nowadays pretend friendship and love fake. When your neighbor asks you. “come again,” he generally means, “not necessary, I didn’t mean it honestly.” This is society today and people have become so business minded that a father may have to get an appointment order from his business magnet son.
Stanza 1
Once upon a time, son,
they used to laugh with their hearts
and laugh with their eyes:
but now they only laugh with their teeth,
while their ice-block-cold eyes
search behind my shadow.
What does the poet convey through the oft-repeated phrase, ‘once upon a time?’
The poet means to criticize his society. He uses once upon a time to intensify the death of a good, ideal society long, long ago and to furnish that the modern society is terribly ruined.
Whom is the poet talking to?
The poet is talking to his son.
What does the poet mean by “laugh with their hearts” and “laugh with their teeth?”
Laughing with one’s heart reveals real gladness while laughing with one’s teeth reveals one’s external showy love and happiness on meeting other people.
What are ‘they’ searching behind the poet’s shadow?
Answer 1 . One’s shadow is not what the person is. If you hate a person, his shadow is not to be necessarily hated. So, searching behind someone’s shadow means interacting with someone’s unreal and fake sides so that there is no need of interacting with the real person.
Answer 2. Search behind one’s shadow means that people have a habit of accepting shadows rather than accepting real people. By accepting and loving the shadows they will not be in any kind of trouble as long as shadows are not harmful.