MIRROR
BY SYLVIA PLATH
SYLVIA PLATH
• Sylvia Plath was born October 27, 1932, in
Massachusetts, America. Plath began writing at an early
age. She began her studies at Smith College in 1950.
Plath suffered from depression while she was in college
and left college to receive treatment at a private
hospital. She returned to Smith and completed her
degree. In 1955 Plath won a Fulbright scholarship and
moved to England to study at Cambridge University
where she met and married poet, Ted Hughes. Although
she wrote hundreds of poems, she did not release her
first collection, The Colossus until 1960. In 1961 she
gave birth to her daughter. It was at this time that she
composed "Mirror". Two years later she gave birth to her
son and soon after discovered that her husband was
cheating on her. After separating from her husband, she
had an intensely prolific writing period. She wrote many
1961, shortly after having
given birth to her first child.
Mirror by Sylvia Plath (1961) Written from the point of view
of a personified mirror, the
I am silver and exact. I have no poem explores Plath's own
preconceptions. fears regarding aging and
Whatever I see I swallow immediately death.
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful - The mirror insists that it
5 The eye of a little god, four-cornered. objectively reflects the truth—
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite a truth that greets the woman
wall. who looks in the mirror each
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so day as a "terrible" reminder of
long her aging self and mortality.
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers. She searches the mirror for an
Faces and darkness separate us over and image that reflects the way
over. she sees herself and feels
inside, yet finds only an
10 Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, increasingly older woman
Searching my reaches for what she really is. staring back.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or
the moon. "Mirror" was first published
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully. in The New Yorker in 1963 a
She rewards me with tears and an agitation few months after Plath’s death
of hands. in the same year.
Personification: no “preconceptions”, in
straightforward tone,
The poem is told from the other words, no
appropriate because the mirror
perspective of a mirror. The mirror predetermined ideas or
is not capable of embellishment
starts by describing itself assumptions about anything,
—to exaggerate or conceal
physically as silver-coloured and
details would go against its very and instead simply takes in
“exact” which means precise/ whatever stands in front of it
nature. Because the mirror has
truthful in every way. right away, exactly the way
no feelings of its own, it is able
[Identify allFree
the verse/
places in which it is, “unmisted” or
to provide an "exact" reflection
the mirror is personified.]
Enjambmen unclouded by any feelings or
that is untainted by "love or
t I am silver and exact. I have no
dislike”." bias. Its intention is not
Natural preconceptions. Sibilance. cruel. Personification:
It does not flatter or
speech Whatever I see I swallow
Effect? insultThebutverb
represents
“swallow”
rhythm immediately appearances
suggests thattruthfully.
the mirror has
Dash = explanation
Just as it is, unmisted by love or follows a mouth and can digest
dislike. Metaphor: whole images instantly.
The I am not is
mirror cruel, only truthful
compared to being- the eye The word could be seen to
of The eye deity,
a minor of a little god,that
except four-cornered.
it is square have a negative
rather than round. Just as a god has connotation, suggesting that
power over his subjects, so the mirror the mirror eats up/ devours
holds disproportionate power over its what it sees, in this case, it
subjects – those who gaze into it. People “swallows” the woman who
seek answers from a god about “what gazes into it. Consider what
[they] really [are]”, just as they seek this could mean in the
answers about themselves from a mirror. context of the poem as a
Like a god, the mirror sees things whole. Is the mirror, in a
For the most part, the mirror “meditates”
(focuses on/ contemplates) the pink,
speckled wall that stands across from
it. The mirror has been staring at this wall
for so long that it thinks the wall is in fact
an essential part of itself. (Note the
feminine connotation of “pink”.)
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.
FacesTheand
walldarkness separate
“flickers” i.e. goesusinover
and out of
and over.
focus as people and darkness pass in front
of it—and into the mirror's line of sight—
again and again.
as her youth and beauty fade away. The fact As her beauty, which
similarities)
that she is not just looking at her reflection was so much a part of
Allusion to Narcissus in
in the lake, but “searching [its] reaches” her identity, fades she
Greek mythology who
(“reaches” means every section) indicates has to look beyond her
loved no one until he saw
her longing to find out something important appearance to
his own reflection in a pool
about herself—something that cannot be discover who she truly
of water and fell in love
found in the mirror, no matter how carefully is on
Thethe inside,
mirror to
seems
with it; unable to leave his
she looks. What the mirror shows is only understand
jealous and herself.
controlling,
reflection, he pined away,
died, and was turned into skin-deep, reflecting just the surface of threatened by the
the flower of like name. things. candles and moon,
The myth teaches the Now I am a lake. A woman bends over spitefully calling them
dangers of excessive self- me, “liars” because, when
absorption, vanity and Searching my reaches for what she really the woman turns to
focus on external beauty. is. them, they show her
Then she turns to those appearance in a softer,
The woman clearly fearsliars, theolder
getting candles
and
or the moon. more flattering light,
losing her beauty and youth—two
I see her back, andcurrencies
reflect it faithfully. masking the evidence of
important social for women
Sheliving
rewards aging. In contrast, the
in ame with tears andsociety,
male-dominated an
agitation of in
hands. The mirror
mirrorappears
reflects to take
every
especially Plath’s day.. Unfortunately,
delightwrinkle
in the woman’s
truthfully.
then, the very parts of the woman that
agitation, saying that she
patriarchal society deems most valuable
“rewards [it] with tears”.
are also the parts of her that have a time
(The mirror is not supposed
stamp; they are quickly fading. The
to have feelings – is this,
insecurity that comes with pinning your
then, a projection by the
The mirror/lake metaphor is
The mirror is “important” to the developed further. Every day Is this a comment on the
woman, perhaps because starts with the woman's face way in which women
women in particular are so often taking the place of the darkness lose their identity when
expected to conform to rigid that the mirror reflected all their beauty and youth
societal standards of beauty and night. The young girl she once fades because these are
youth. A woman’s worth in was will never look back at her the only aspects of
society has traditionally been again, having been themselves on which
measured by her appearance, metaphorically drowned in the society places value?
still very much the case in the mirror.
1950’s when Plath was writing I am important to her. She comes and goes.
her poetry. Each morning it is her face that replaces the
darkness.
In me The
Simile: she has drowned
woman’s a young
aging girl, and
appearance in me
rises towards her from
an old woman
the depths of the mirror/lake “like a terrible fish”.
Rises the
On the inside, toward her is
woman day after
the sameday, like ashe has always
person
terrible
been, yet fish.
as she gazes into her reflection “each morning”, she
sees “an old woman/ Ris[ing] toward her day after day like a
terrible fish”. This description suggests that the woman's
reflection is disconcerting, as if the aging process has made
her unrecognizable; her changing face feels shocking,
grotesque and unreal, the stuff of nightmares. And yet, the
mirror insists that it is, indeed, real. This disconnect between
how she feels inside and the harsh reality shown by the mirror,
highlights the horror and difficulty of confronting aging,
particularly for women whose identity is bound to their
Pop Artist: Andy
Warhol 1928-
1987 Sylvia Plath as a Post-Modernist Poet
Post Modernist
Art
Consider whether Plath’s poem Mirror displays
some or all of the following Post-Modernist
qualities. Quote from the poem to provide evidence
for your answer.
❖ Calls into question the values and ideologies of
society
❖ Poetry used as a form of protest or a way to
express views on social and political issues
❖ Confessional, autobiographical writing style
❖ Questioning of identity
❖ Sceptical, subjective and personal
❖ Ironic, darkly comic, often paranoid
❖ Free verse/ stream-of-consciousness writing
❖ Develops an intimate relationship with the reader
❖ Clear, everyday language/ rhythms of ordinary
speech
❖ Fragmentation
❖ Unreliable narrators
