Mirror Analysis

7/31/2019 Mirror Analysis

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At the end of the eighth line, we see that the relationship between the wall and the

mirror isn't as constant as we thought: the wall flickers.

Line 9

Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Here we see why the wall flickers because of faces and darkness. The faces come to

look in the mirror, and when they leave, they turn the light off, leaving the mirror to

reflect nothing but the darkness.

The way Plath has structured this line makes us think that the mirror must be sad at

this separation. If we didn't know any better, we'd think that these two lines were part

of a love poem from person to her beloved, and not from a mirror to a wall.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me.

Searching my reaches for what she really is.

With the new stanza, our poem switches: we're now no longer hearing from a mirror,

but from a lake. Yet the speaker is conscious of this changeit sets it up with the

word "now."

We're not quite sure what the lake looks like, but it must be pretty clear and still to

show reflections like a mirror. We wonder if the lake is as honest as the mirror, and if

it misses the pink speckled wall.

Whether or not this lake is the same at heart as the mirror, the poem moves on to

show what the lake is reflecting: a woman.

Because she's looking in a lake and not a mirror, the woman must bend over to see the

reflection of her face. But the woman isn't only trying to see the reflection of her face; she's hoping to see

something deeper: what she really is.

She's searching the reaches, or the depths, of the lake, perhaps looking not only into

her reflection, but also into the waters beneath it.

Lines 12-13

Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.

I see her back, and reflect it faithfully

This woman is determined to find a way to reflect herself, to show something deeper

than what is on the surface. After searching in the lake, she turns to face the

moonlight and candles to try and see a different reflection.

The lake calls candles and the moon liars, because their light can warp sight, often

hiding people's blemishes and making them appear more beautiful (candlelight

dinners and moonlight walks are romantic for a reason, after all).

Here, we see more human characteristics from the speakerthe lake is calling other

inanimate objects liars. Of course, none of these things can talk, much less talk trash

about each other, but this lake is proud of its honesty, as we see further in line 13.

When the woman is turned away, to look at the lying moon and candles, the lake is

still there, reflecting her back, faithfully showing the truth.


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provide is false. The mirror's declaration personifies the candles and the moons, giving them

human qualities, like the ability to lie.

Line 16: Again, in this line, we see faces and darkness. But instead of the faces separating the

mirror from the pink wall, faces replace the darkness. We'd expect the sky, in the morning,

to replace the darkness, but instead, the woman's face is the first thing reflected in the lake.

Type of Work and Year of Publication

......."Mirror" is alyricpoem in free verse. Sylvia Plath wrote the poem in 1961. The London firm ofFaber and Faber Ltd. published it in 1971, eight years after her death, as part of a collection entitledCrossing the Water. The New York firm of Harper & Row published the collection later in the sameyear.

Theme

.......If you want to know the truth, be as objective and detached as a mirror. It reflects exactly what itsees without hiding flaws. Whether you are evaluating an actor's performance, a meatloaf recipe, areligion, a political system, a Miss America candidate, a scientific theory, or yourself or anotherperson, you must be "unmisted by love or dislike" (line 3).

Summary

Stanza 1

.......Speaking to the reader, a mirror hanging on a wall says it reflects exactly what it sees. It is notbeing cruel when it reveals the flaws of the person looking into it, the mirror says. Rather, it is simplybeing truthful. With proper illumination, it sees everything in front of it. In this respect, it is like a "littlegod," it says.The mirror says it spends most of its time looking at a pink wall across from it. It is as if the wall hasbecome part of it

its heart. From time to time, people pass in front of the wall, making it seem as if

the wall is flickering.

Stanza 2

.......The mirror says it is now a lake. A woman comes by each morning to look into it to examineherself. As she ages, she dislikes what she sees in the lake. But she comforts herself with theinsincere flattery of others and the magic of age-banishing cosmetics. (The moon and candlesmentioned in line 12 symbolize the false compliments and the cosmetics, for they cast only dim lightthat does not reveal flaws.) Meanwhile, each time she looks into the lake old age and death risetoward "like a terrible fish" (line 18).

Point of View

Plath wrote the poem in first-person point of view. The speaker is a mirror, which tells the reader whatit reflects. In the second stanza, it becomes a lake. For further information seeSummary, 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 (1859-1936) and other French poets pioneered thisverse form in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Text of the Poem
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Mirror Analysis

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