The Struggle Between Deception And The Rape

Furthermore, the presence of a male authority in the poem denies not just the physical characteristics of the speaker as a female, but also restricts their psychological identity. This is discernable at the end of the text through a tension of veracity versus deception as a means of framing the central action of the rape. For instance, the speaker struggles in these last lines with the decision to either, “confess” the “portrait” or “likeness,” of their rapist and so, represent the truth or instead, “swallow” the details by creating a false reality through withholding information (29-30) (OED).