by Sylvia Plath
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nZht4WMoMo
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The title immediately tells us what the
subject of the poem is.
The mirror is personified throughout the
poem and speaks directly to us, using the
personal pronoun ‘I’.
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Mirror is written in free verse form, meaning
that there is no repeated pattern of rhyme or
rhythm.
Plath does make use of half-rhymes
throughout to create emphasis.
Half-rhyme is the term used to refer to words
that nearly rhyme, but not quite.
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In the first stanza, the mirror describes itself both in
appearance and character:
the mirror is a truth-teller, reflecting what is
really there, but not cruel in any way.
In the second stanza, there is a
sudden shift as the mirror turns
into a lake that provides
reflections, and the character of
the woman is introduced. The
woman is upset by her own
reflection and tries to change it,
but the truth will not be hidden:
she is no longer the young woman
she once was.
Synopsis is a brief summary
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.
The mirror claims that it replicates and reflects
exactly what it sees – a true image of what is directly
in front of it. The image is not altered or obscured by
emotion or bias; there is no ulterior motive or agenda.
The rectangular / square ‘little god’ is an objective
but powerful entity that sees everything in front of it.
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.
Even though the mirror is all-seeing and powerful, it
mostly reflects ‘the opposite wall’. The ‘pink’ wall
suggests that it is hanging in a girl’s bedroom.
The mirror has spent so long looking at the wall that it has
become part of its very identity or soul. (Remember the
mirror is personified).
The wall is obscured when a person comes between them;
when the lights are turned off; or at night.
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.
The second stanza shows an abrupt shift – from a mirror to ‘a
lake’, which the woman bends over searching for her
reflection. She is not just searching for a reflection of her
physical appearance, but for a reflection of ‘what she really is’
– her identity, her soul, the meaning of her existence.
However, she doesn’t like what she sees so she turns to candles
and the moon to provide a different light in which she can see
herself. Candles and moonlight provide softer, more flattering
light.
The lake, however, will not be fooled, and it reflects faithfully
and truthfully.
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.
The woman is upset by what she sees , reacting with ‘tears
of anguish’ and wringing her hands in ‘agitation’.
However, she continues to return to the lake to look at her
reflection, which is important to her.
She is at the lake first thing every morning to gaze at her
reflection in the water.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
The young girl who the woman once saw reflected back at her
has disappeared – as though drowned in the waters of the lake.
Every day, the ‘old woman’ she will become is appearing more
clearly to her as she ages in her reflection.
Just as the mirror in the first stanza, the reflection provided by
the lake is truthful: she is no longer a young woman.
The image of a grotesque fish also reflects what the woman
sees as the hideous appearance of her reflection as she ages.
Mirror can be seen as a symbol for poetry, or for
Plath herself. The similarity of ‘silver’ and the
poet’s name Sylvia represents Plath’s meditation
on her craft: as a poet she reflects the world around
her truthfully – as she sees it. She aims to be
objective rather than ‘cruel’.
For most of the time, she reflects on the ‘opposite
wall’ which represents her ‘heart’ or identity. This
identity ‘flickers’ or is obscured by the interference
of external elements such as people.
Another interpretation is that the poem is
concerned with the theme of change and the
passage of time.
This is evident in the second stanza where the
woman becomes distressed because her
appearance changes as each day passes.
The theme is further extended to include the
anxiety women feel regarding their aging and
appearance and the distress caused by pressure
from society to look a certain way.
An intertextual reference is when another poem, story or text is alluded to in the poem.
The second stanza gives us an intertextual reference. The
woman is gazing at her reflection in the water of the lake.
This refers to the story of Narcissus from Greek mythology.
Narcissus was a hunter who was well-known for his good
looks. He was also extremely vain. He fell in love with his
own reflection when he saw it in a pool of water. He became
so obsessed with his own image that he could not leave it,
and spent so long gazing at it that he eventually died. (Some
versions of this myth say that he leaned forward to kiss his
reflection, fell into the water and drowned.)
This myth is the origin of the term ‘narcissist’ which we use
to describe someone who is extremely vain and obsessed
with themselves.