Mirror, by Sylvia Plath

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Sylvia Plath’s poem “Mirror” is a sad expression of a woman’s perception of her own self-worth based primarily on her outward appearance and her inability to come to terms with her aging. The work utilizes the literary devices of personification, imagery, and symbolism, to emphasize the poems theme of human vanity and the subsequent fear of aging.

Plath personifies the mirror who as a first person narrator takes on two forms. The first being that of a manufactured mirror which at the opening of the poem states “I am silver” (Line 1) which alludes to the silvering process used in the production of commercially produced mirrors. In the second stanza the human made mirror is transformed into the natural mirror which is found in the reflection of still water with the words “Now I am a lake” (10). This use of personification is intriguing as the mirror speaks as a human yet purports to take on little if any of the human personae of bias or preconception. We find this in the early disclaimer made both in the second sentence of line one “I have no preconceptions” (1) and in lines four and five “unmisted by love or dislike …not cruel, only truthful.” (4, 5)

Plath make use of the literary device of Imagery most dramatically in line seventeen where she writes of the young girls drowning in the mirror. The image of the “terrible fish” (18) is also striking as the woman in the mirror sees herself as a horrifying creature who is relegated to a life within the source of the refection. The combined effect of both the human made mirror and the natural mirror seeing the woman as ugly is that of her being repulsive in the eyes of both humanity and the nature.

This poem is also filled with symbolism. The greatest of which can be found in the most obscure of places. This is to say that the most significant error made by the narrator is the discounting of the two objects which contain the antidote for the woman malady. In line twelve we read that “the candles or [and] the Moon” (12) are accused of deception. The candle and the moon may be symbols for romantic love or Eros which cancels self-doubt and self-loathing. The narrator fails to understand that as Shakespeare wrote “Love is blind” (Shakespeare 2-6-36). This relates back to the theme of human vanity and the fear of aging as it responses to our fear with the assurance that true love sees past the superficial appearance and accepts the actual person and not the image in the mirror.