Sylvia Plath Mirror Analysis Essay

Nonetheless this woman ends up consulting the mirror in a Snow White-like way despite being angered by what she sees in the lake's reflection.This underlines her obsession with beauty as she prefers the truth rather than deceit even if the truth is painful.The persona in this poem could have represented society at the time, a shallow society persistent on looks and beauty and not focused on the inner beauty of women. The insecurity of the woman persona in “Mirror” is identical to the inadequacy and self-consciousness of Prufrock. Prufrock is plagued by doubts about his stature and physical appearance – bald spot, his thin legs, and his dress.

Nonetheless this woman ends up consulting the mirror in a Snow White-like way despite being angered by what she sees in the lake's reflection.This underlines her obsession with beauty as she prefers the truth rather than deceit even if the truth is painful.

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“I am silver”; “I meditate on the opposite wall.

It is pink with speckles.” The use of ‘speckles’ represents imperfections, which emphasises that the mirror does not alter its perceptions, and gives a justification, “I am not cruel. The separation of the two stanzas also serves as a purpose to separate time.

However, whichever path she takes to seek for her identity she finds deception.

However one is truthful and the other is plainly described as a liar.

Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands. In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

A woman bends over me, Searching my reaches for what she really is. Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.However this beauty is something that disappears over time, an attribute of youth. Sylvia Plath was one of the most dynamic and admired poets of the 20th century. Introduction English Commentary - Mirror by Sylvia Plath In Mirror, Sylvia Plath explores the themes of physical appearance and aging. This mirror then goes on to great lengths to assert its objectivity, allowing the reader to possibly question this objectivity as this is a quality that is overemphasized.Also the mirror acts as a metaphor for passing time as it constantly reminds the woman about her age, day after day.These self-claims expose the mirror as having a high ego.However the mirror's main assertions are its unparalleled qualities for truth; it is "exact" (1) ..more.She let her writing express elemental forces and primeval fears.In doing so, she laid bare the contradictions that tore apart appearance and hinted at some of the tensions hovering just beneath the surface of the American way of life in the post war period.” Oates put it more simply when she wrote that Plath’s best-known poems, “many of them written during the final, turbulent weeks of her life, read as if they’ve been chiseled, with a fine surgical instrument, out of arctic ice.” Plath has inspired countless readers and influenced many poets since her death in 1963.In the 2nd stanza, the identity of the persona (young girl) has changed into an older woman, which represents the next stage of her life.Devices such as similes and metaphors are used elaborately to add further meaning to the imagery.