Sylvia Plath poetry is unique because of her use of language and the perspective and themes she explores, creating powerful images and original metaphorical ideas to evoke a strong climax of feelings which express the struggles she experienced in her own personal life. Her poems ‘Lady Lazarus’ and ‘Daddy’ are confessional poems that use contemporary form and respectively a childlike and mocking tone to convey the persona’s mixed sense of emotions . Plath’s poetry utilises unique language to express her anger, hope, desire and disappointment. There is a constant suicidal motif in her poems revealing her personal issues and problems which are linked to male domination in the patriarchal society she resided in. It is unusual that Plath’s poetry is written in a strong female perspective contrary to the passive domesticity which women were meant to abide by in her 1950’s and 1960’s context.…
Ronald Takaki is one of the foremost-recognized scholars of multicultural studies and holds a PhD. in American History from the University of California, Berkeley. As a professor of Ethnic Studies at the same university, he wrote A Different Mirror: a History of Multicultural America as a fantastic new telling of our nation’s history. The book narrates the composition of the many different people of the United States of America.…
This underlying theme and aspirations of achieving beauty is ever-present in this poem. From its beginning to its very conclusion, with the woman’s day dreams about people looking at her in awe…
The “mirror” in the song, or, more accurately, his own reflection, is a symbol of a part of himself—the part of himself that…
The themes of isolation, hopelessness and insanity are heightened greatly through the use of imagery and allusions. As the opening of the poem originates at midnight ‘the gloomiest’ time of the night with the only source of light irradiating from the moon, the only things can be seen through the moonlight indicating the importance of the moon. In a traditional sense, the moon was seen to represent the womanly grace associated with physic, intuitive and mysteriousness yet also in a way presenting a dark nature welded in a realm between the conscious and the unconscious. The fragile wordings embody the compassionate feats of the feminine and motherly side of the moon as she tenderly ‘smooths the hair of the grass.’ However there is a radical change in tone as ‘A washed-out smallpox cracks her face.’ As this line is ambiguous as to whether the persona was referring to the moon or a woman’s facial features or perhaps both. However in the artwork, a depiction of a crescent moon illuminates to a different notion of the beginning of a renewal cyclic change.…
While describing his movements as he sees them in the mirror, the voice is one of deep admiration for the beauty of the naked body. The subject of the poem twists and turns in such odd positions in order to be able to admire various physical aspects from…
“Our preoccupation with fame is at least partly explained by our immersion in a media-saturated world that constantly tells us, as Braudy described it, “we should [be famous] if we possibly can, because it is the best, perhaps the only, way to be.””(Chaudhry 635) While a lot of people are fascinated by the self-expression and democracy facilitated by the new technology that is constantly being developed in society today in this new blogger democracy, Lakshmi Chaudhry published an article titled “Mirror, Mirror On the Web” to argue how the medias have rapidly evolved into tools for one to become famous. She is worried that self-expression has fallen effortlessly into self-promotion. The media culture made people; especially the young people’s appetite for being seen and getting renowned become stronger than ever before.…
In the opening verses of “Mirror,” the narrator commences its narration by declaring itself neutral. It announces it has “no preconceptions” and without bias or emotions it will metaphorically “swallow immediately” what it needs as it is “unmisted by love or dislike”. It is the truth which causes much grief to a woman who visits it each day. Unlike Plath’s poem, Harwood’s omniscient narrator describes a woman who’s “clothes are out of date” to further enhance the…
In Picasso’s “Girl before a Mirror” the canvas portrays a young and beautiful girl in the act of evaluating herself in an oval mirror which reflects her likeness in a distorted way. The mirror lengthens her nose while curbing her check and jaw. Her face is now a chalky lilac tone, the blush on the check into an orange shaped tear drop. Her eye’s shape are different and now purple circles. This rearrangement makes the reflections looks ghostly and fearsome as the image of a human being. The spectator is reminded of the vanities in which a woman, viewing her countenance in a mirror, sees herself not the way she looks but as old withered, or as a skeleton.…
Sylvia Plath was born to middle class family in Massachusetts. Plath published her first poem when she was 8.She was bright, sensitive, was a perfectionist at everything she attempted. She was a brilliant kid, getting A grades in school, winning the top prizes. She was a model daughter. By 1950 when she joined Smith College she already had an remarkable list of publication.…
On the one hand, it illustrates how characters such as Lester and Jane spend too much time focusing on their body image and dedicating too much time on themselves, particularly in times of dissatisfaction and crisis, instead of figuring out the actual root of their unhappiness and strengthening their relationships to others. On the other hand, the mirror represents a tool that does not only contribute to a negative but also a positive change of the self. At a certain stage of one’s life one just has to hold a mirror up to oneself and reflect on the following: Who am I? Have I denied myself?…
Identity is the basic characteristics that determine a person’s fact of being. The short story “Mirror Image” illiterates this using different conflicts, such as physical attributes, mental, emotional, and spiritual factors. Alice, who had a brain transplant surgery after a car accident. Her brain is transplanted to another girl’s body named Gail, who is 2 years older than her and has totally different experiences from which Alice has. She struggles finding what defines her, being confused trusting her body’s willing or her brain till the end of the story. Trough Alice’s whole experience, soul can be regarded as the most significant influence on identity rather than her body’s willing or her brain. It can be observed through the literary devices of internal conflict and external conflict.…
In “Mirror” by Sylvia Plath, the speaker expresses how society tries to manage women and it causes them to be disappointed with their looks if they have aged. In the poem a women uses candlelight and moonlight to judge her appearance, because it may not be truthful. Then if she is ageing she can’t tell and is untroubled by her appearance. For example, the speaker says, “Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. / ”(12).. Society has created a conjecture of how women should look. The woman tries to use other sources of light to conceal evidence of aging so that she can be satisfied with her looks. Eventually women come to the realization that they can no longer cover up the fact that they are aging. Society has engendered women to be dejected with their physical appearance. Women grow to resent the natural process of ageing. The speaker shows this when she says, “In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman / Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.” (17-18). The women is looking in a lake and she sees that she is getting older. Her ageing is compared to a terrible fish rising to the surface; therefore, she sees her age as threatening and wants to be young and valued again. Others play a significant role in influencing women, but women have figured out they can…
Specific examples of how the female persona is saying that she has an inappropriate sexual attraction to the cruel male figure without directly stating this fact are examined. This article provided new insight on how to investigate Sylvia Plath’s poem Daddy. This article also support my thesis through the domination of the female persona in the poem she is also experiencing sexual desires of her father.…
This poem dramatizes the theme of unreturned love, particularly as this theme relates to the pessimistic sacrifices of the persona. From this poem, the persona tells about one of his/her past personal experiences. The flow of words from the first stanza until the last stanza creates an atmosphere of tense, desperation and passion of the persona, who is trying to win the heart of whom he/she loves dearly. The poem records the change of mood and offerings of the persona according to different parts of the day. It is also the recording of a passage from hope to delusion. The use of Simple Past underlines that the relation between the two persons is completely finished. The different parts of the day resemble the phases of a love story that the persona has faced. The different settings and flowers used in each…