Why sylvia plath wrote mirror

Together with unusual syntax, no obvious rhyme or meter and an astute use of enjambment, "Mirror" is a personification poem of great depth. I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.

I am not cruel, only truthful, The eye of a little god, four-cornered. 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. Faces and darkness separate us over and over. Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, Searching my reaches for what she really is. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.

I see her back, and reflect it faithfully. She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands. I am important to her. She comes and goes. Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness. In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

This poem is all about appearances and the search for the self. The fact that the mirror is the voice and has the starring role is a little odd, but Sylvia Plath wanted to show just how powerful an object the mirror is in people's lives. In particular, she wanted to highlight the issue that some females have with their image, and the inner turmoil that can be caused as the aging process picks up its pace.

The poet's own struggle for a stable identity only adds to the idea that the face in the mirror must stay young, pretty and perfect. The opening lines introduce us to the passive rectangle of silver, the glass and the shiny surface which only tells the truth and has no other purpose.

Mirrors have no prior knowledge of anything; they simply are. Note the use of the verb "swallow" which suggests that the mirror has a mouth and can digest whole images instantly, like a creature. The next line, too, emphasizes the savage nondiscriminatory nature of the mirror. It's as if the mirror is saying, "To me you are food which I need to satisfy my insatiable appetite. I am silver I am not Most of the Now I am Then she turns I am important In me she Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem.

The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem. A Reading of the Poem — Hear the poem read aloud. Mirrors and Women — A brief essay by Neve Akridge about the significance of mirrors in women's literature.

The Poet's Voice — Check out this recording of Plath reading a selection of her earlier poems, most of which were featured in The Colossus, her only book published during her lifetime. Biography and Poems — An overview of Sylvia Plath's life and work, along with a number of her poems to explore. Plath also explores the idea of how grave these timeless and poignant issues can affect a fragile. Certainly, the benefits of literature and the knowledge acquired from it have been acknowledged by a vast majority of individuals.

Nonetheless, one must wonder, does literature hurt humans? Does it only do good? Is it good for nothing? Through careful analysis of certain pieces of literature, the ways in which literature can act. 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. Sylvia Plath wrote the poem in , 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. By using a mirror as a narrator and …show more content… These are the images symbolize for the depression of relationships coming and going, the despair of loneliness.

Jump in the second part of the poem, we can find there is a change. Point of View. Plath wrote the poem in first-person point of view. The speaker is a mirror, which tells the reader what it reflects. In the second stanza, it becomes a lake. For further information see Summary , above. Verse Form. The poem is in free verse, a type of poetry with rhythms based on words patterns rather than meter such as iambic pentameter.

Gustave Kahn and other French poets pioneered this verse form in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Text of the Poem. However, a book entitled Poetry Reloaded , by Blair Mahoney, has reproduced the poem with permission of the publisher. You can access the page on which the poem appears by clicking here. Notes and Comments. Line 1 , I am silver and exact : The word silver here refers to the coating on the back of a glass mirror.

It can be made with liquefied silver or aluminum applied to a smooth glass plate.