And yet, the clockwork puppet, certainly but a shadow of a living woman, can only try to sing, try to move out from the shadows, out from the stereotype crushing her. The horrible marionette, in contrast, rather than singing, smoked its cigarette and tried to pretend it was alive. Finally, the utter hopelessness of the dark side of Victorian society comes out with the phrase, "The dead are dancing with the dead, the dust is whirling with the dust," evoking the funeral speak of "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," and the dead -- the underside of society, those with whom the proper Victorian had little use, pass from love to lust, from light to dark, tire of the game as they do the synthetic waltz, their shadows morphing into nothing as they continue to wheel and whirl, finally weary of it all.

The literary images of this poem, coupled...
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