Analysis Of Mirror By Sylvia Plath

In the short story “Initiation” by Sylvia Plath, the protagonist Millicent, a girl at Lansing High School is being tried as a member of an elite sorority. The girls must go through a week of being an older sister’s servant to be then tried on Friday at Rat Court. Only the most popular girls are accepted into the sorority. These popular girls are also the ones who get the most, popular boyfriends. Everything seems like a dream to Millicent except for the fact that her best friend Tracy wasn’t even considered. Although she wants to belong in the sorority, Millicent finds out that things might not be as perfect as they seem. In “Initiation” by Sylvia Plath, the author uses the point of view third person omniscient to allow the reader to

The poem the Mirror is about beauty standards. She talks about how, as a mirror, she shows exactly what she sees and she tells no lies. The narrator states, “I am not cruel, only truthful.” When the narrator becomes a lake, she can also only show truth and reflection of one’s self. The Mirror represents the truth of who we actually are, even if society has portrayed us as or forced us to be someone else.

In 1963 on a cold winter day of February 11th, Sylvia Plath ended her life. She had plugged up her kitchen, sealing up the cracks in doors and windows before she was found with her head inside of her gas oven inhaling the dangerous fumes. She was only thirty years old, a young woman with two small children and an estranged ex-husband. A tragic detail of her life is that this is the second time she had tried to commit suicide. Plagued with mental illness her whole life, which is evident within her poetry. She would write gripping, honest portrayals of mental illnesses. Especially within Ariel, the last poetry book she wrote, right before she took her life. Although it’s hard to find a proper diagnosis for Sylvia Plath, it is almost definite that she at least had clinical depression with her numerous suicide attempts and stays in mental hospitals undergoing electroshock therapy. Sylvia Plath is now famously known for her writing and the more tragic parts of her life. Such as the separation from her husband, Ted Hughes, mental illness, etc… Plath may not have intended for her life and art to become inspiration to many people but that has become the end result. Sylvia Plath writing shows symptoms of her suicidal thoughts. To study specific moments in Sylvia Plath’s life, it can be connected to certain writing’s of her’s, such as “Daddy”, The Bell Jar, and “Lady Lazarus”.

After reading “what the mirror said”, some readers may say that this poem was not written to embrace the woman’s beauty but to explain that she is confusing and hectic. A reader with this point of view would

Doesn’t everyone wish they could grow up faster when they are younger, but when they actually start to grow up, they just want it to slow down? Aging is a unique experience to everyone and each person deals with it differently. This theme of aging and how people see themselves can be seen both similarly and differently in “Mirror” by Sylvia Plath and “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. These similarities and differences can be seen through each author’s tone, each poem’s structure, and each poem’s overall message.

The mirror itself challenges the link between representation and truth‹the images January sees are reconstructions/reflections, rather than the women themselves. Furthermore, the mirror is not even real. It is the poet's metaphor, itself another kind of reconstruction, and so the reader becomes twice removed from these women who are being represented. January bases his non-visual assessment of these women not on direct interaction but on hearsay; it is their reputation among the people that determines what he thinks of their characters (ll. 1591-2). The mirror becomes a metaphorical space in which January can appraise

Nonfiction is a genre of writing in which the author reflects on actual events in history. Lucy Grealy writes about an intense part of her life in a memoir. A memoir is written by the person it is about, usually written on the topic of something the author did or witnessed. Throughout this book, the author gives off vivid imagery and themes in order to help us understand just how difficult her life was. For example, in chapter 12, “Mirrors” on pages 207 to 208, Lucy describes just how a man loving her could change her view on life. Imagery, diction and setting also help to bring Lucy’s memoir together. Although this section seems to be about Lucy finding love, it is actually about the search and acceptance of self-identity as we can see from

In this reflective essay, Stewart discusses the struggles her and her family went through. He family has faced a lot of struggles and throughout all these struggle a mirror was there to see it all. The essay starts off when Stewart is arguing with her mother then blinded by anger she broke the family mirror. It all started with her great-grandmother Elsie when she lost her husband in a tragic fire. The mirror was the only thing left in this fire. Elsie passed this mirror on to her daughter Ruby.

The first thing one can notice in Sylvia Plath’s poem “Mirror” (rpt. In Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson, Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, 9th ed. [Boston: Wadsworth, 2006] 680) is that the speaker in the poem is the mirror and the woman in the poem is Sylvia Plath. As you read through the poem, the lake is relevant because of the famous mythological story of narcissus. He was extremely beautiful and one day while drinking from a lake he saw his reflection. He looked at it for so long and so close that he fell in the river and died. This shows the consequences of vanity. Sylvia Plath uses this metaphor to show that the little girl that used to look in that mirror has now

It is said that people cannot truly know themselves, but must rely on reflections in mirrors, photographs, and other people in their lives. Unable to see themselves as others see them, people often get confused and end up detaching themselves from reality. Author Sylvia Plath was a bright, young woman with an interest in poetry and writing. However, after the death of her father, she developed neurosis and attempted suicide for the first time using sleeping pills, but was unsuccessful. She uses her depression and suicidal tendencies as a foundation for her novel, published two weeks before her successful suicide.

It is clearly shown that the mirror is hanging behind the woman because by her right wrist it shows the change from the red wall to the golden mirror frame. The setting is a theater as it's shown through the reflection of a lady’s bare legs with light green shoes on the top left-hand corner of the painting. The Folies Bergere was a Moorish influenced place that turned into a bar/theater where prostitution was suspected to be held (Manet 2). Also, by looking at the man's eyes it appears that he is looking down at her breasts, and that is why she looks distanced from the viewer. The overall interpretation of what Manet is saying is that the mirror doesn't always hold the truth because it seems as the mirror only shows the exterior of the person's image not what she or he is feeling.

mirror. Who are almost getting in the way so to speak of its life and

Sylvia’s Plath’s “Metaphors” is about a woman feeling insignificant during the midst of her pregnancy. Striking imagery is used to explore the narrator’s attitudes about having a child. Plath uses metaphors in every line, including the title itself, making the poem a collection of clues. The reader is teasingly challenged to figure out these clues, realising that the metaphors have

Wrapped in gaseous mystique, Sylvia Plath’s poetry has haunted enthusiastic readers since immediately after her death in February, 1963. Like her eyes, her words are sharp, apt tools which brand her message on the brains and hearts of her readers. With each reading, she initiates them forever into the shrouded, vestal clan of her own mind. How is the reader to interpret those singeing, singing words? Her work may be read as a lone monument, with no ties to the world she left behind. But in doing so, the reader merely grazes the surface of her rich poetics. Her poetry is largely autobiographical, particularly Ariel and The Bell Jar, and it is from this frame of mind that the reader interprets the work as a

Why is the mirror so important to her? Do you think the mirror might have any symbolic significance? If so, what?