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Nevin Adamski
Mrs. Boyd
MYP English 9
May 13, 2013
Sylvia Plath believed that 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” (Freedman).
However, the white one had no personality; she had a slave mentality. Both ended their lives “on
February 11, 1963” (Napierkowski). Inspired by both her dual life and the tragic events she
experienced, Sylvia Plath’s preoccupation with identity, death, and women’s societal roles 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; soon after, she began to suffer from recurrent depression. From this point
on, death became a theme that can be seen “throughout much of Plath’s work and appears in
‘Mirror’ as well.” In 1962, only six years after her wedding, “Plath learned [about] her
husband’s” affair. Unable to recover from her broken marriage, Plath faced an even greater
struggle with “severe depression and she committed suicide on February 11, 1963.” Due to her
struggle, the poems leading up to Plath’s suicide are “often dark, [and] at times full of despair
and anger at life.” The early 1960s also “marked the beginning of women’s attempts to achieve
equality with men.” Women experienced various forms of discrimination and victimization; they
“were 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, including “Mirror.”
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Many literary critics, including Jeannine Johnson and William Freedman, have expressed
their opinion on Plath’s “Mirror.” According to Johnson, “the mirror possesses both human and
non-human attributes” (Johnson). 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.” The personification of the mirror gives it the power of reflection, a parallel to Plath’s
observation that male superiority prompted men to judge women by their appearance. Societal
roles are a very evident theme throughout Plath’s poetry because of this. Johnson also claims that
the woman looking into the mirror is “concerned with growing older, studying her face for
evidence of aging.” Plath describes the woman as such because the body image being presented
at the time led a woman to believe that “a deteriorating physical appearance [took] away from
her sense of self-worth” (Johnson). The impact that this image left on women throughout
America is portrayed through characters in Plath’s poetry, including the woman in “Mirror.”
William Freedman also 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 “the woman as maledefined ideal” (Freedman). Many women, like the one in “Mirror,” are unsatisfied with this
image and seek false reassurance (Plath).
The title and attitude of Plath’s “Mirror” reveals a connection to her milieu. The title,
“Mirror,” brings to mind the image of a mirror and its role, to reflect. Throughout the poem, the
mirror evolves into a middle ground between “numbing self-cancellation and aggressive selfassertion” (Freedman). Assuming the mirror’s role in the poem is the equivalent to accepting the
“male-proscribed image of woman and mother” (Freedman). Nonetheless, many women
accepted this role without opposition, as seen in Plath’s “Mirror.” In addition, the metaphors in
“Mirror” help develop Plath’s attitude towards significant events in her life. The cruelty of the
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mirror suggests Plath’s anger at male dominance and her marriage, and the agitated woman
suggests Plath’s feelings for her dead father. The significant events that Plath experiences
contribute to the attitudes expressed in her poems.
Sylvia Plath effectively describes her milieu through her poem, “Mirror.” In “Mirror,”
Plath uses the word “flickers,” a word connoting a brief source of light, to describe the passing of
days (Plath). Both Plath’s childhood and her marriage flickered away, but left a significant mark
on her poetry. The death of her father and her broken marriage signaled a beginning to Plath’s
downhill spiral. Plath’s “Mirror” also raises questions on social status. The “constraints imposed
by the culture of that period” were accepted by many women (Napierkowski). A woman bought
“into the notion that her value as a person [lasted] only as long as her ability to appeal to men”
(Napierkowski). Plath’s position as a woman had a significant impact on the “social status”
theme of “Mirror.” Furthermore, “the national obsession with image, appearance, and weight” is
articulated in “Mirror.” It is conveyed 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.” As she
witnesses the horror of growing older, the woman’s “youth [is] not just replaced by age, but
destroyed by it” (Napierkowski). The woman in “Mirror” is a reflection of Sylvia Plath and her
struggle to maintain her identity in a changing society.
Sylvia Plath’s poems inspired women throughout the 1960s. The messages and themes
communicated through her poetry can, also, inspire modern day society to overcome
discrimination. Understanding the emotions that victimization will evoke for minority groups is
will prompt citizens to take action to improve the life of minorities. The obsession that Sylvia
Plath developed over identity, death, and women’s roles was a result of her double life and a
reflection of her milieu.
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Works Cited
Freedman, William. “Mirror.” Poetry for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 1.
Detroit: Gale, 1998. 121-123. Print. 123-131.
Johnson, Jeannine. “Mirror.” Poetry for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 1. Detroit:
Gale, 1998. 121-123. Print.
Napierkowski, Marie Rose, and Mary K. Ruby. "Mirror." Poetry for students. Detroit, MI: Gale
Research, 1998. 115-121. Print.
Plath, Sylvia. “Mirror.” The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women. Ed. Sandra M. Gilbert
and Susan Gubar. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Incorporated, 1996. 2084. Print.
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“Mirror” by Sylvia Plath
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful‚ The eye of a little god, four-cornered. Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall. It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers. Faces and darkness separate us over and over. Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, Searching my reaches for what she really is. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. I see her back, and reflect it faithfully. She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands. I am important to her. She comes and goes. Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness. In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
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