“To live in prison is to live without mirrors. To live
without mirrors is to live without the self.”

— Margaret Atwood

Selected Poems 1976-1986 (1987), Marrying the Hangman
Context: To live in prison is to live without mirrors. To live
without mirrors is to live without the self. She is
living selflessly, she finds a hole in the stone wall and
on the other side of the wall, a voice. The voice
comes through darkness and has no face. This voice
becomes her mirror.

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Margaret Atwood 348

Canadian writer 1939

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