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Contradiction in Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror”
Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror” is a beautifully written persona poem told through a mirror’s
perspective. The mirror tells of a woman who comes to it to see her reality but when the mirror
shows the girl her reality, she is taken aback by it and turns away from the vision. The mirror
claims to be truthful and non-judgmental, yet through closely reading and studying this poem,
the mirror’s claims seem to be at the very least inaccurate. Although the poem’s lack of unity is
subtle, the contradictions of itself are in the text for all to see. The mirror claims to have a
certain set of values and morals, yet as the poem continues those same values and morals come
to be questioned. The poem does not stop at just questioning its ideology, it also goes on to
provide statements that are contradictory. It is as if the mirror cannot decide how it wants to be.
It is in these two ways that the poem deconstructs itself.
The poem starts with the mirror describing its attributes. The mirror says that it is
truthful, non-judgmental, exact, faithful and god-like. When one thinks of a mirror, it is usually
associated with a positive connotation. A mirror represents truth and honesty and it is
universally accepted that truth is superior to dishonesty; therefore, readers accept the mirror’s
words as being truthful. The words of the mirror also introduce the poem’s main theme which is
the opposition between truth and dishonesty. The mirror tells readers that it tells the truth no
matter what; it is “unmisted by love or dislike” (line 3).
The mirror seems to be negating readers onto its side in the first stanza of the poem by
listing all of these attributes because in the second stanza readers are introduced to a woman who
accuses the mirror of being the opposite of everything it has said: cruel, unjust, dishonest, and
inexact. This opposition can be viewed in two ways. The first being that the mirror is doing just
as it should be and showing the woman her reality, not with cruelness but rather with pure
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honesty and the woman cannot accept what she is being shown so she accuses the mirror of
showing her reality with a sort of cruelness and judgment attached. The second way to look at
this opposition between the woman and the mirror is the connotative way. The mirror
symbolizes those who are able to bear the truth as bluntly as possible and the woman represents
those who are unable to hear the truth with such bluntness, rather those people who need
something to soften the blow of the truth.
The mirror’s “faithful” reflection of the woman’s reality seems to have made a negative
impact on the woman. The vision of the woman’s reality has made her desperate and “she
rewards me [the mirror] with tears and an agitation of hands.” (14). The woman’s inability to
accept her reality the way the mirror has reflected it brings into question how the truth should be
told. If the woman’s reality would have been revealed to her more mildly rather than “faithfully”
she may have been able to better accept the truth rather than having the truth exposed to her
“faithfully” and dealing with such disastrous feelings of despair and pain. The mirror’s
“faithful” reflection forces the woman to turn back “to those liars, the candles or the moon” (12).
But are the candles and the moon really liars if they showed the woman her reality in a more
gentle and easier way in which she were able to deal with it? It is with this question that the text
deconstructs its own ideology through questioning the validity of moral standards in different
contexts.
After deconstructing its own ideology, the poem goes on to contradict itself pointing out
to readers the poem’s inability to decide its stance. As the poem starts, the mirror points out
exactly what it is and what it does:
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
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Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful—
The eye of a little god, four-cornered. (1-5)
When one thinks of God, one thinks of a just, non-judgmental, fair being who does not need, nor
want, any type of reward or gratitude for His greatness. The mirror claims to be a god and yet it
shows several instances where it is not god-like. The mirror calls the candles and the moon liars,
depicting onto the objects a negative connotation. It seems to be casting a judgment on the
candles and the moon. The mirror also says: “She rewards me with tears and an agitation of
hands./I am important to her…” (14-15). The mirror is showing that it needs to feel of
importance in the woman’s life and that it expects some sort of “reward” or attention from the
woman showing readers that not only does the woman need the mirror, but the mirror also needs
the woman in order to exist. Yet, as mentioned earlier, God neither demands nor needs any such
thing from individuals. At the end of the poem the mirror goes on to demonstrate ungodly
behavior by not only reflecting the woman’s image but also commenting on her image: “In me
she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman/Rises toward her day after day, like a
terrible fish” (17-18). The use of the word “terrible” implies another judgment which seems
rather harsh and cruel, all attributes that the mirror distinctively said it did not possess.
The mirror goes on to accuse the woman of not wanting to accept her reality, yet it states:
“A woman bends over me,/searching my reaches for what she really is” (10-11). After reading
these lines, it is implied to readers that the woman really does want to know and accept her
reality, no matter how ugly it may be. When she turns towards the “liars”, she may be wishing
that she could go back to believing what they have told her in order to avoid the pain she is
feeling and yet she keeps coming back to the mirror day after day.
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At first glance, Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror” gives readers the illusion that it is a poem written
with unity and decisiveness, yet if one takes the time to closely examine the poem and dissect it,
the lack of unity and decisiveness comes to light. The question is does the poem’s contradictory
state add meaning to the poem? Did Sylvia Plath know all along that the poem in which she
created questioned itself and did not present a unified front? I would be so brave as to say that
the answer is yes she did intend to present the poem with contradictions and a questionable
ideology. The poem’s deconstruction of itself makes readers step back and seriously ponder the
answers to the questions presented in the poem. Plath proves that deconstruction does not have
to take the form of necessarily being a negative thing, but instead something that causes readers
to focus in on the contradictions and start asking themselves some important questions.