In “Mirror”, Sylvia Plath Argues that how a girl looks is reinforced as her most important quality, and when her face start to deteriorate with age, it is horrifying to her. Mirror is a poem by Sylvia Plath, written in 1961. The main subject of the poem is a woman who is distressed with aging. But the speaker is a mirror, the mirror that is just so important to the woman. “Mirror” has 2 stanzas, each with 9 lines. The two stanzas look they are being reflected at the break because their lines correspond in length. While “Mirror” is written in free verse, with no specific regard to number of syllables or rhyme, it sounds natural and smooth.
[Add around 3 lines to introduction]
The Mirror says that she has no feeling of love or …show more content…
That is why Plath switched the setting, to have the image of the lake being the mirror. When you look into a lake, you see fish, plants, the bottom. You can ‘search the reaches’ of a lake, in a way you can’t with a mirror. Plath changes the mirror to a lake to represent how the woman is searching the reaches of her reflection, her face. She doesn’t like what she sees, and turns away to “those liars” (12). When she comes away from the flattering moon and candle lights, she is devastated to see what she really is. The mirror says sarcastically that she “rewards” (14) her with her tears and her “agitation of hands” (14). The woman drops her tears into the lake, causing the lake to ripple. She also distorts the image of herself with her hands, not wanting to accept that this is happening. It’s like she’s hoping that it was a mistake and when the water calms, she will be her young self again. Again, water is representing change, this time in the distortion of her image. This change is such a large contrast from the first stanza, when the mirror was “silver and exact” (1). Now that the mirror is a lake she is less exact, and she can be changed by the woman’s hands. But no matter how much she splashes the water, her image will still look the same when it settles down. The woman comes to the lake every morning
[Add around 3 lines to introduction]
The Mirror says that she has no feeling of love or …show more content…
That is why Plath switched the setting, to have the image of the lake being the mirror. When you look into a lake, you see fish, plants, the bottom. You can ‘search the reaches’ of a lake, in a way you can’t with a mirror. Plath changes the mirror to a lake to represent how the woman is searching the reaches of her reflection, her face. She doesn’t like what she sees, and turns away to “those liars” (12). When she comes away from the flattering moon and candle lights, she is devastated to see what she really is. The mirror says sarcastically that she “rewards” (14) her with her tears and her “agitation of hands” (14). The woman drops her tears into the lake, causing the lake to ripple. She also distorts the image of herself with her hands, not wanting to accept that this is happening. It’s like she’s hoping that it was a mistake and when the water calms, she will be her young self again. Again, water is representing change, this time in the distortion of her image. This change is such a large contrast from the first stanza, when the mirror was “silver and exact” (1). Now that the mirror is a lake she is less exact, and she can be changed by the woman’s hands. But no matter how much she splashes the water, her image will still look the same when it settles down. The woman comes to the lake every morning