13th March, 2014 In the poem “Mirrors”, by Sylvia Plath the speaker accentuates the importance of looks as an aging woman brawls with her inner and outward appearance. Employing an instance of self refection, the speaker shifts to a lake and describes the discrepancies between inevitable old age and zealous youth. By means of sight and personification, shifts and metaphors, the orator initiates the change in appearance which relies on an individual’s decision to embrace and reject it. 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. Plath employs a shift to accentuate a change in time. The speaker of the poem says “I am silver and exact/Now I am a lake” (1, 10) to indicate an alteration in time. The purpose of the device is to convey an adjustment in c... ... middle of paper ... ...worse than before. For instance, old men and women inject their faces to resemble those in their youth, but they worsen their mental and physical state by executing such actions. To conclude, one should embrace her appearance because aging is inevitable. Works Cited Freedman, William. “The Monster in Plath’s ‘Mirror’.” Papers on Language & Literature 23.1 (1987): 152-169. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 24 Feb. 2014. Giles, Richard F. “Sylvia Plath.” Magill’s Critical Survey of poetry. Ed. Frank N. Magill. Pasadena: Salem Press, 1992. 2592-2602. Richardson, D. “Plath’s Mirror.” Explicator 49.3 (1991): 192-194. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 24 Feb. 2014. Tomei, Christine D. “Sylvia Plath.” Great American Writers of the Twentieth Century. Ed. R. Baird Shuman. New York: Marshall Gavendish Corporation, 2002. 1213-1221
Wiesel’s community at the beginning of the story is a little town in Transylvania where the Jews of Sighet are living. It’s called “The Jewish Community of Sighet”. This is where he spent his childhood. By day he studied Talmud and at night he ran to the synagogue to shed tears over the destruction of the Temple. His world is a place where Jews can live and practice Judaism. As a young boy who is thirteen at the beginning of the story, I am very impressed with his maturity. For someone who is so young at the time he is very observant of his surroundings and is very good at reading people. In the beginning he meets Moishe the Beadle. Moishe is someone who can do many different types of work but he isn’t considered qualified at any of those jobs in a Hasidic house of prayer (shtibl). For some reason, though young Elie is fascinated with him. He meets Moishe the Beadle in 1941. At the time Elie really wants to explore the studies of Kabbalah. One day he asks his father to find him a master so he can pursue this interest. But his father is very hesitant about this idea and thinks young E...
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
Murphy, B. & Shirley J. The Literary Encyclopedia. [nl], August 31, 2004. Available at: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2326. Access on: 22 Aug 2010.
Society has always judged its inhabitants for its outwards appearance; not taking in to consideration how a person has a deeper part to them. When just taking the superficial into consideration, we find ourselves looking at the blemishes and not the beauty. Judgment is thrown on those whom get old, although they cannot halt times effects. Judging those that were born with defects mental or physical that are portrayed in their visible areas. All these individualities are read into more than they should be. A mirror, on the other hand, shows what is standing in front of it and nothing else. Sylvia Plath’s poem Mirror does expresses the defects within society that judges those for their presence, it will lie to make a person’s thoughts of their appearance get altered, and that a mirror is clear looking at one with what can be compared with a gods eye; perfect, but even though the mirror sees one as unadulterated time still passes.
Wanger-Martin, Linda. "Plath, Sylvia (1932-1963)." Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature. George B. Perkins, Barbara Perkins, and Phillip Leininger. Vol. 1. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. 850. Literature Resource Center. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
A relationship is an emotional connection to someone involving an interaction between two or more people. There are many types of relationships, some functional and others far from being workable. I will demonstrate this through my texts of; Little Fugue, and Morning Song both poems written by Sylvia Plath; the movie, Love Actually; and the book, Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce.
Sylvia Plaths poem, Sow, depicts a beast of mythic proportions through various images, comparisons, and specific word choices. By presenting the sow from both the point of view of its owner, neighbor, and of the speaker, Plath paints a vivid picture of farmyard decadence that the reader can relate to.
Sure, some of us have this great confidence within ourselves about looking great, but that does not hold true for everyone. I understand the pain or disgust, or even disappointment one feels when they look in the mirror and say, “I wish I could change this or that about myself”. Although this piece is written about the author’s life, it holds meaning and connects with for many people; one only has to dig deep enough to find one. For me, it was to realize what is important in life can change, adapt and that we must explore our inner selves and find our own path in life.
Freedman, William. “The Monster In Plath’s Mirror’.” Papers on Language & Literature 29.2 (1993): 152. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 27 Mar. 2010.
The Cold War period allowed for new understandings into the various “Ways of Thinking”, which helped shape the societal paradigms of the era. These revelations in to the new “Ways of Thinking” is evidenced through Sylvia Plath’s poems, “Daddy”, “The Applicant” and “Morning Song”, and John F. Kennedy’s speech, “Ich Bin Ein Berliner” (1963). The composers are effectively able to reflect the “Ways of Thinking” of the period, such as the scientific, religious, philosophical and economic paradigms, in their compositions through various literary techniques.
Sylvia Plath’s poetry is well known for its deeply personal and emotional subject matter. Much of Plath’s poetry is confessional and divulges the most intimate parts of her psyche whether through metaphor or openly, without creating a persona through which to project her feelings, and through the use of intense imagery. Plath’s attempt to purge herself of the oppressive male figures in her life is one such deeply personal and fundamental theme in her poetry. In her poem, “Daddy”, which declares her hatred for her father and husband, this attempt is expressed through language, structure, and tone. (Perkins, 591)
McCann, Janet. “Sylvia Plath.” Magill’s Survey of American Literature. Ed. Frank N. Magill. Vol. 5. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1991. 1626-39. Print.
“Mirror” is a disturbing poem that exemplifies the tension of inner and outer beauty, as well as the feminine problem of aging and losing one’s glamour. In the poem, Plath is a mirror that is personified. The first stanza starts by describing the mirror as “silver and exact.” The poem goes on saying, “I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow immediately just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.” This means that the mirror forms no judgments, but instead swallows what it sees reflecting that image back without any alterations. Plath describes the mirror as not being cruel, only truthful because it always shows exactly the image it is shown. The first stanza finishes by saying, “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 a part of my heart. But it flickers. Faces and darkness separate us over time.” Here she is first describing how most of the time she is just looking across the empty room meditating on the pink speckled wall of a little girl. She has seen the wall for so lo...
Abrams, M.H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1993.
Through alliteration and imagery, Coleridge turns the words of the poem into a system of symbols that become unfixed to the reader. Coleridge uses alliteration throughout the poem, in which the reader “hovers” between imagination and reality. As the reader moves through the poem, they feel as if they are traveling along a river, “five miles meandering with a mazy motion” (25). The words become a symbol of a slow moving river and as the reader travels along the river, they are also traveling through each stanza. This creates a scene that the viewer can turn words into symbols while in reality they are just reading text. Coleridge is also able to illustrate a suspension of the mind through imagery; done so by producing images that are unfixed to the r...