The poem “Mirror,” by Sylvia Plath, portrays the difficult truth in relation to aging. The poem is told in the point of view of a mirror belonging to an aging woman. The mirror “[is] silver and exact,” with “no preconceptions” (1). It reflects only the truth, real images without distortion. The mirror has been a part of the woman’s life ever since she was young, sitting across her pink, speckled walls acting like “the eye of a little god” (5). As the woman ages, she seems to be in frustration with her appearance, seeking relief by looking at “liars, the candles or the moon” (12). This symbolizes the woman’s attempt to look at things that will reflect back an image she desires, a fake image versus reality. The mirror, however, only gives her the …show more content…
While real life, mirrors are inanimate objects, the author uses personification. In this way, Plath allows us to see the story as the mirror sees it. Considering that a mirror only sees the truth, we are also given a story without alterations. In the first stanza the mirror tells the reader what it is. In the first verse the mirror tells the reader “I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions” (1). Further, in the third and fourth verse the mirror tells the reader that it is “unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful” acting as “the eye of a little god” (3-5). Through the mirror’s description of itself, the reader learns that this is an object or being that can only reflect back what is shown. The mirror gives an unbiased reflection of reality, not blinded by love or fueled by dislike. Through the line “the eye of a little god,” Plath uses imagery to show us how truthful and observing the mirror is (5). It sees and reflects everything like a god, and only shows the reality. Although the mirror never explicitly says it is a mirror, Plath allows us to infer the object’s identity through diction such as “silver,” “four-cornered,” and “reflect” (1, 5,
The poem starts out with a mirror being personified “I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. / Whatever I see, I swallow immediately. / Just as it is unmisted by love or dislike.” The mirror changes itself based upon what it sees regardless of what it is. Ironically the same can be said about humans that their environments also change them. Humans reflect diet through physique, smoking through tarred lungs, or self-esteem from social ranking. The poem then says, “It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long / I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.” This poem is reflecting patterns of which emotional states also transform the person. When a man spends enough time in a given area, he or she develops an emotional attachment to it. Another transformation “Now I am a lake.” This direct shift from a mirror that gives an exact copy transforms into a lake in which gives a reflection that’s murky and hard to make out. It goes on “A woman bends over me, / Searching my reaches for what she really is. / Then turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.” This section calls into question the objectivity of the previous reflections. The mirror that is now transformed into the lake and is suspicious to those that give light, which also reveals the actual object. It also could reflect that mirror is only as accurate as the observer and perception distort reality. A
why she wrote a poem about a mirror is because at that time she was
In American society, the common stereotype is that the father has the role of the dominant figure in the household. Sylvia Plath and Sharon Olds may come across as two seemingly different poets, however, they are really quite similar, especially in their driving forces behind their writing styles in poetry. The lives of Plath and Olds are both expressive of the realities of a father-dominated family, in which both of these poets lost their fathers at a young age. This is significant because both poets have faced a similar traumatic event that has had everlasting effects on their adult womanhood, which is reflected in their writings. For both these woman, their accesses to father-daughter relationships were denied based on life circumstances. Ironically, their fathers were their muses for writing and are what made them the women they are today.
Sylvia Plath was American short-story writer, poet and novelist that was born on October 27, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts and died on February 11, 1963. Sylvia Plath is best known for, her books of poems, “The Colossus and Other Poems Collection” and the “Ariel Collection” of Poems.Plath’s poetry was known for its rhyme, alliteration and disturbing and violent imagery. Plath’s poetry is considered part of the Confessional movement, which became very popular in the United States during the 1950s through the 1960s. It is considered a type of poetry about “of the personal”. Confessional poems are more associated with the subject matter of sexuality, mental illness and suicide.
All three novels parallel in respect to the image of mirrors, and the obvious implications of mirrors and their ability to reflect their observer. In Frankenstein, the monster looks into a pool and in relating the incident to Victor, says "when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification" (76). Likewise, Jane Eyre views herself in a looking-glass and sees that her reflection is "colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality" (26). Eliot's Maggie Tulliver is so ashamed of herself that she refuses to look at who she is and inverts her mirror, thus proclaiming that her reflection, as she views it with...
There is no shortage of media encouraging adolescents to ‘be themselves’, promoting self-worth regardless as to what others think. While many may be fed this message throughout music and film, rarely ever is it conveyed to actually have a lasting effect on one’s personal views quite like Sylvia Plath’s “Initiation”. Although formulaic, Plath’s uniquely optimistic short story warns against an obsession with belonging, and explores the importance of individuality through the protagonist Millicent Arnold’s gradual character development, from a self-conscious teenage girl to a stronger and more confident individual.
Both poems, “Mirror” and “Piano” have subjects that are reflecting and longing for their past to return. This longing and reflecting is considered the theme of the poems. In “Piano”, D.H. Lawrence writes of the man yearning for his past. Despite all of his yearning, he eventually realizes that it will not return. The speaker says, “…I weep like a child for the past” (12). This describes the speaker’s longing for his past to return, despite knowing that this is not possible. Similarly, in “Mirror”, Sylvia Plath the poet reflects her theme of longing for the past by using the woman viewing her aging reflection in the lake waters. The mirror views the woman and says, “In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman” (17). The mirror is showing that the woman’s past of being a young girl has diminished, and what remains is the old woman she now is. Both poems share a common theme of the re...
A phenomenal writer’s work generates a powerful bond between their words and the reader. This is factual of Sylvia Plath’s poetry. It contains universal, timeless themes of depression and death that, in these dejected days, many people can relate to. Sylvia Plath was a confessional poet whose oppressive life led to her relatable story. She wrote many astonishing poems, such as “cut”, “Among the Narcissi”, and “A Birthday Present” that all chronicle and showcase her struggle for a release from the suppressed world she subsisted in, a world that many remain to live in today. Sylvia Plath’s poetry narrates both her distinct, individual story and yet universal tale of a woman who searches for a way out of her depressed state of mind.
The author applies sight and personification to accentuate the mirror’s roles. The declaimer of the poem says “I am silver and exact [and] whatever I see I swallow” (1, 20). The purpose of these devices is to convey the position of the mirror in the poem. As an inanimate object, the mirror is incapable of consuming anything but the appearances of entities. Furthermore, the glass’ role accentuates an inner mirror, the human mirror which does not forget instances of misery and contentment. According to Freedman, the mimicking image emulated by the mirror elicits “… a look for oneself inside” as observed from the life of the elderly woman in the sonnet (153). Moreover, as the woman looks into the lake, she commemorates her appealing and attractive and pleasant figure as a young girl. As time passes, the inevitability of old age knocks on the door of the woman, readily waiting to change the sterling rapturous lady perceived by many. One’s appearance can change; it is up to an individual to embrace it or reject it.
looked at it so long I think it is part of my heartâ?¦Faces and darkness
save his life, but he died in November of 1940, when Sylvia was just eight
Many people come from a haunted past, leaving indefinite scars in their memory. This causes permanent numbness in their hearts and leaves them with nothing but isolation from the their loved ones. These damaged memories can later flood the individual causing him/her to create an enemy within themselves. The internal scars within a person stay hidden; however, certain circumstances may draw out he/she hidden past and shows him/her to the world. In “Lady Lazarus” and “Tulips,” Sylvia Plath creates a theme of darkness through imagery of death and sorrow that reveals the sadness she feels due to her haunted past.
Lady Lazarus repeats the struggle between Nazi and Jew which is used in Daddy, with the Nazi atrocities a background across which the amazing, self-renewing speaker strides. The speaker orchestrates every aspect of her show, attempting to undermine the power an audience would normally have over her. She controls her body, instead of being a passive object of other eyes.
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer who suffered from depression. The death of her father, when she was only eight years old, was what triggered her depression. And because of that, most of her work revolve around the death of her father and her attempts of suicide. In her poem Lady Lazarus is about her attempts of suicide and how she feels about death. This theme of death and suicide can also be seen in the poems Daddy, which is about her deceased father, and Edge which is about a person who is about to commit suicide. Sylvia plath´s poetry centrally tends to discuss suicide and death as the main subject, which can be exemplified by the poem Lady Lazarus.
The poetry of Sylvia Plath can be interpreted psychoanalytically. Sigmund Freud believed that the majority of all art was a controlled expression of the unconscious. However, this does not mean that the creation of art is effortless; on the contrary it requires a high degree of sophistication. Works of art like dreams have both a manifest content (what is on the surface) and latent content (the true meaning). Both dreams and art use symbolism and metaphor and thus need to be interpreted to understand the latent content. It is important to maintain that analyzing Plaths poetry is not the same as analyzing Plath; her works stand by themselves and create their own fictional world. In the poems Lady Lazarus, Daddy and Electra on Azalea Path the psychoanalytic motifs of sadomasochism, regression and oral fixation, reperesnet the desire to return to the incestuous love object.