Metaphor in a Louise Gluck Poem

In Louise Gluck's, "Life is a nice place," written in 1966, the poet uses the extended metaphor and irony to develop her idea that life is not really worth living, and to explicate that notion for her audience. By making a metaphorical comparison between life and a masquerade party, Gluck is, in effect, able to ironically demonstrate why life is actually not a "nice place".

The title of the poem sets the reader up with an expectation that the poem will explain the elements of life that make it such a "nice place". This title is repeated in the first line, as if it is a reassurance of that, and then the poem actually does live up to the audience's expectations, by describing a party�a truly "nice place," or at least it would seem, with "decorations", "music", and "prizes", but then the last line, "I wouldn't want to live there," reverses the meaning

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