Analysis of Sylvia Plath's Mirror
Analysis of Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror”
Sylvia Plath is known as the poet of confession. Her life is strongly connected to her works. She uses poetry as a way to confess her feelings, to express and release her pain in life. “Mirror” is one of her most famous poems. Sylvia Plath wrote the poem in 1961, just two years before her actual suicide. After suffering a miscarriage, she realized that she was pregnant again. She and her husband moved to a small town and their marriage began going worse. The poem is not simply about a mirror. This is a poem about self-realization, despair but also truth. We can see the poem as a reflection of Plath’s difficult life, but it’s also the women’s reflections in general. By using a mirror as a narrator and its reflection, Sylvie Plath portrays a picture of herself as well as her consciousness of the line between truth and lies, the inexorable process of age and beauty.
The poem is divided by two parts. On the first part, we can find the mirror being personified and introducing itself by its voice: “I am silver and exact. I have no preconception.” (line 1). Sylvia Plath gives senses and characteristics of a human to the mirror, a lifeless thing. It can “see” and “swallow” (2). This personification makes the mirror become more human. In other words, the mirror becomes none other than the author herself. Sylvia Plath chooses the mirror because of its truthfulness. Mirror is the symbol of truth and reality. It reflects everything precisely, “unmisted by love or dislike” (3). Maybe the mirror in the poem is personified, but it’s not like most people. It doesn’t let what it sees affected by emotion. The action of “swallowing” is a metaphor for reflecting. The mirror appears hungry to us. It makes us feel a little unforgiving and uncompromising, , just like how the truth can be appear to us, depressing, frustrating, or even painful. But the mirror is not “cruel”, it’s only “truthful” (4). It just reflects everything in front of it
Sylvia Plath is known as the poet of confession. Her life is strongly connected to her works. She uses poetry as a way to confess her feelings, to express and release her pain in life. “Mirror” is one of her most famous poems. Sylvia Plath wrote the poem in 1961, just two years before her actual suicide. After suffering a miscarriage, she realized that she was pregnant again. She and her husband moved to a small town and their marriage began going worse. The poem is not simply about a mirror. This is a poem about self-realization, despair but also truth. We can see the poem as a reflection of Plath’s difficult life, but it’s also the women’s reflections in general. By using a mirror as a narrator and its reflection, Sylvie Plath portrays a picture of herself as well as her consciousness of the line between truth and lies, the inexorable process of age and beauty.
The poem is divided by two parts. On the first part, we can find the mirror being personified and introducing itself by its voice: “I am silver and exact. I have no preconception.” (line 1). Sylvia Plath gives senses and characteristics of a human to the mirror, a lifeless thing. It can “see” and “swallow” (2). This personification makes the mirror become more human. In other words, the mirror becomes none other than the author herself. Sylvia Plath chooses the mirror because of its truthfulness. Mirror is the symbol of truth and reality. It reflects everything precisely, “unmisted by love or dislike” (3). Maybe the mirror in the poem is personified, but it’s not like most people. It doesn’t let what it sees affected by emotion. The action of “swallowing” is a metaphor for reflecting. The mirror appears hungry to us. It makes us feel a little unforgiving and uncompromising, , just like how the truth can be appear to us, depressing, frustrating, or even painful. But the mirror is not “cruel”, it’s only “truthful” (4). It just reflects everything in front of it