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What Is The Mood Of The Conjurer

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In “The Conjurer”, by Maura Stanton, the writer creates a bizarre atmosphere by blending the fantasy with the reality. Post-modernism and the time period in which she wrote in had an affect towards the writing style she used in her poem. Throughout “The Conjurer”, Stanton uses ambiguity, imagery, and characterization to convey a fantastical world to the readers.
In 1975, Maura Stanton wrote Snow on Snow, a book which contained several poems. One of the many poems was called “The Conjurer”. The poem focused on the merging of the reality and the fantasy given the time in which she wrote it. “The Conjurer’ was written in the late 20th century, which was the time period of post-modernism. Post-modernist literature was noted for having irony, magical realism, and black humor ("A List of Postmodern Characteristics" n.p.). The time period in which the writer lives in can have an influence in their writing. For Maura Stanton, the post-modernist era had an influence in her poem “The Conjurer”. As a result, the poem contains many characteristics of post-modernism literature, a bizarre, magical atmosphere and ambiguity. …show more content…

The speaker has the tiny people’s fate in his hands. “Don’t they see? I could dump them/ out into a real garden, let them tunnel/ through the weeds to an anthill” (lines 25-27). The speaker expects the people to be grateful not realizing how devastated they are. Stanton also uses a sense of innocence when characterizing the speaker. The speaker uses a mayonnaise jar to keep the people in, which is similar to a child catching bugs in a mayo jar. She creates irony by doing this because the speaker is not as naïve as he seems. The speaker also says, “They don’t understand me” (line 8). The speaker’s dialogue is alike to that of an innocent child talking to a parent. He sounds naïve at first, but as the reader finishes the story they see a different side of

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