Analyse af 'The Mask' af Govert Lund og novelle

The picture is centered on a big mirror with a wooden frame. The mirror shows the reflection of a man, who is looking out from inside the mirror. The man inside the mirror is about 40 years, and he looks sad. In front of the mirror you see the contour of a man, however the figure in front of the mirror has no body and instead of a face he is wearing a mask and the contour of the body is marked with a coat. Just as the person inside the mirror, the figure in front of the mirror has a pencil, but inside the mirror the man is holding the pencil in his hand, and outside the mirror the pencil isn’t hold in any hand. All this indicates to me that the person inside the mirror and the person outside the mirror are one and the same person.

I think that the painter has tried to show a person who is hiding himself behind a mask. I think that the person the painter has tried to show is showing the people around him an image, which is not the same as who the person really is. But the person can’t hide his image from the mirror, which shows who the person really are, and I think that is what the painter has tried to show. Perhaps the man on the painting is supposed to be the painter himself. Another idea could be, that the man on the picture is a writer who doesn’t write what he really feel or think, but write what people prefer to hear him think or feel. The symbol on that could be the man’s missing hand and the missing connection to the pencil. But he can’t hide what he really feels and what he really should write for the mirror. That is the hand and the connection to the pencil a symbol of.