Adamski 1
Nevin Adamski
Mrs. Boyd
MYP English 9
May 13, 2013
Sylvia Plath once described how there had been two of her, one new white person, and
one old yellow one. The old yellow one was “one of a profusion of monstrous forms threatening
the placid surface from below” (Freedman). No better, the white person had no personality, but a
slave mentality; both “committed suicide on February 11, 1963” (Napierkowski). Sylvia Plath’s
preoccupation with identity, death, and women’s societal roles, inspired by both her dual life and
the tragic events she experienced, is present throughout much of her poetry, including “Mirror.”
The events that took place throughout the course of Plath’s life “would have a significant
impact on [the nature of] her poetry” (Napierkowski). When Plath “was only eight years old,”
her father passed away from diabetes mellitus (Napierkowski). Soon after, death became a theme
that is seen “throughout much of Plath’s work and appears in ‘Mirror’ as well” (Napierkowski).
She began “suffering from recurrent depression which would plague her throughout her life”
(Napierkowski). In 1962, six years after her wedding, “Plath learned of her husband’s
infidelities” (Napierkowski). Unable to recover from their broken marriage, Plath faced an even
greater struggle with “severe depression, and she committed suicide on February 11, 1963”
(Napierkowski). This struggle can be observed in many of her most famous poems, including
“Mirror.” The poems leading up to Plath’s suicide are “often dark, at times full of despair and
anger at life, and many contain violent images and unsettling metaphors” (Napierkowski). The
early 1960s, “the period during which Plath wrote ‘Mirror’ and many other of her most famous
poems, [also] marked the beginning of women’s attempts to achieve equality with men”
Adamski 1
(Napierkowski). Women experienced various forms of discrimination and victimization; they
“we encouraged to sacrifice their own identity in order to find happiness and fulfillment in the
nurturing of husbands and children” (Napierkowski). Plath’s perception on how society was
changing rooted itself in a number of her later poems.
Many literary critics, including Jeannine Johnson and William Freedman, have expressed
their opinions on Plath’s “Mirror.” According to Johnson, “the mirror possesses both human and
non-human attributes” (Johnson). In line eight, “it appears that, for a moment, the mirror is no
longer an unfeeling instrument of reflection, but a being with the capacity to ‘meditate’ and one
that possesses a vital organ, a heart” (Johnson). The personification of the mirror allows it to
judge anything standing in its view, a parallel to Plath’s observation that men had become
accustomed to judging women based on their appearance. Johnson also claims that the woman
looking into the mirror does not only want to check her appearance; “she is pursuing more
profound information about her basic identity” (Johnson). The woman is “particularly concerned
with growing older, studying her face for evidence of aging” (Johnson). As Plath experienced
firsthand, the body image that was being presented at the time led a woman to believe that “a
deteriorating physical appearance [took] away from her sense of self-worth” (Johnson).
Furthermore, William Freedman points out that the woman’s “search in the mirror is ultimately a
search for” herself (Freedman). The image that appears in the reflecting lake is a flattering
distortion of the woman; “the woman as male-defined ideal” (Freedman). These are the women,
like Sylvia Plath, “who [desire] to remain the ‘young girl’ and who turn ‘to those liars, the
candles or the moon’ for confirmation” of their self-worth (Freedman).
Examining the title and passages of Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror” allows a reader to draw
conclusions about the poem. The title, “Mirror,” hints a “turning point in Plath’s development”
Adamski 1
(Napierkowski). Throughout the poem, the mirror “represents a kind of middle-ground between
the extremes of passivity and action, numbing self-cancellation and aggressive self-assertion”
(Freedman). Therefore, “to assume the mirror’s role [in the poem] is implicitly to accept that
male-proscribed image of woman and mother” (Freedman). As Plath saw it, most women during
the time period, including herself, accepted this role without opposition. The theme “search for
self” in “Mirror” also “suggests that Plath may be questioning her own identity”
(Napierkowski). The woman in the poem, a symbol for Plath, seeks truth in a mirror a symbol for
a man. The men developed a set of expectations for women and mothers; these expectations
impacted a women’s role in society, making a woman believe it was her responsibility to raise
and nurture a child while the husband provided for the family. The male idea of a female also
caused women to lose their identity. Women began to believe that the only thing a man saw was
what a mirror reflected, and the reflected image continued to disappoint them. Plath witnessed
the shift in society and used it as a major focus of her writing.
“Mirror” is a poem derived from the milieu of Plath. The passing of her father in 1940
and her broken marriage with Ted Hughes signaled the beginning to Plath’s downhill spiral, a
decline that became clearer as the theme of death began to consume her work. In “Mirror,” Plath
uses the word “‘flickers’- a word which most people would associate with a very short lived
source of light,” to describe the passing days (Napierkowski). Both the life of her father and
Plath’s marriage to Ted Hughes flickered away, like a flame on a candle, leaving a mark on
Plath’s poetry. Societal roles and a struggle for women’s rights is also observed in “Mirror.”
“Many women accepted the constraints imposed by the culture of that period,” such as the
woman in “Mirror” (Napierkowski). The woman in “Mirror” poem “[buys] into the notion that
her value as a person lasts only as long as her ability to appeal to men” (Napierkowski). Also
Adamski 1
originating in this period “was the national obsession with image, appearance, and weight,
particularly for women,” which continues to the day. A 1960’s woman’s “obsession with image
and with youth is articulated in ‘Mirror’ through the woman’s recurrent visits to the lake, hoping
each time that a more flattering version of herself will be reflected on its surface”
(Napierkowski). As she witnesses the horror of growing older, the woman’s “youth [is] not just
replaced by age, but destroyed by it” (Napierkowski). This woman is a reflection of Sylvia Plath
and her struggle to maintain her identity in a changing society.
Most critics, including Johnson and Freedman, agree that the mirror and the woman in
Plath’s “Mirror” reflect the milieu of Sylvia Plath and male dominance of the 1960s. Men took
advantage of their superiority, compelling women to believe that their self-worth was measured
by a man’s happiness. The death of her father and the failure of her marriage also influenced the
serious tone and themes of her poems. The obsession that Sylvia Plath developed over identity,
death, and women’s roles was a result of the her double life and an escape from her past.