what is the meaning of "whirlpool leers at me", "Incoherent scraps of talk", "A whirlpool leers at me" and "I cast off my identity And make the fatal plunge."

TRhe speaker dreads this family reunion. She feels forced to be somebody she is not: to conform to the expected identity that family has carved out for her. She sees the reunion as a "whirlpool" which she has to plunge into.