Mirror Essay

Mirroring is a literary device used by Edgar Allan Poe to provide symmetry to his story “Ligeia” (Stroe). Ligeia is the story of a man whose entrance into the fantasy world has all of the suddenly been blocked. The characters that mirror each other are Ligeia and Rowena (Stroe). Additionally, Ligeia is a personified dark fantasy and Rowena is a representation of a bland, boring reality in which the narrator is unhappy living in. As Ligeia and Rowena interact with the unidentified narrator, they push him to the far boundaries of fantasy and reality. The narrator admits to the loss of his own sanity because of the interactions with both Lady Ligeia and Lady Rowena.

    As the time passes she can clearly see the woman in the paper. The woman in the paper is quiet and peaceful during the day, but at night she is imprisoned by the bars in the paper. This is reflection helps the narrator identify her own bars--her husband John. He is away during the day and at home in the same bed with her at night. She also identifies with the woman in the paper by sharing their similar routine. "At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be"..."by daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy its the pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling. It keeps me quiet by the hour".

     Sure, some of us have this great confidence within ourselves about looking great, but that does not hold true for everyone. I understand the pain or disgust, or even disappointment one feels when they look in the mirror and say, “I wish I could change this or that about myself”. Although this piece is written about the author’s life, it holds meaning and connects with for many people; one only has to dig deep enough to find one. For me, it was to realize what is important in life can change, adapt and that we must explore our inner selves and find our own path in life.

The imagery in the poem, specifically natural imagery, helps use the reader’s senses to develop a vivid depiction of the speaker’s connection to nature and dissatisfaction with the surrounding reality. The speaker’s continued use of the “moon” reflects her attribution of feminine identity and idolistic character to the moon. As opposed to referencing herself and her personal insomnia, she uses the imagery of the moon “beyond sleep” to convey her internal struggles with insomnia and her reality. Throughout the poem, the speaker also refers to shining, reflective surfaces, such as “a body of water or a mirror”, to describe the inverted reality in which the speaker experiences reciprocated love. Reflective surfaces often invert the image that is projected into them, seemingly distorting the true nature and reality of the projected image. The speaker’s reference to this reflective imagery highlights her desire to escape the burden of a patriarchal society and assume an independent and free feminine identity. Specifically, the use of natural imagery from the references to the “moon” and “a body of water” convey the speaker’s desire to take refuge within the Earth or in the feminine identity of the Earth, Mother Earth. Feminine identities are often related and associated with aspects of nature due to the natural cycle of the menstrual period and the natural process of procreation. The speaker takes advantage of these connotations to suggest Earth and natural imagery as an escape from the man-made terrors of male dominated society. In the second stanza, the speaker uses extensive imagery to develop metaphors conveying the speaker’s experience of jealousy of the moon

This reflect remembers Montag’s description of Clarisse as a mirror in The Hearth and the Salamander. Granger clearly sees that they need to evaluate who they really are before they start doing new things. Mirrors in the book Fahrenheit 451 are symbols or self-understanding of seeing oneself clearly. Mirrors can also be symbols of seeing who you really are from the outside to the inside. “Come on now, we’re going to go build a mirror factory first and put out nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them” (Bradbury

“One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me,” (pg. 115, Wiesel). The author’s message is revealing how someone should be able to overcome their struggles if they truly have confidence in themselves. Being that almost everyone goes through struggles at least once a day, the message about looking pass through the obstacles that seem really hard by thinking that it is achievable. It connects to everyone because of how people go through hardships in their life time varying in their age drawing out the conclusion that everything is achievable if only you believe that it is possible to do.

Harwood revolves this poem around change, through the use of a motherly character she is able to construct a life style that has dramatically changed from free to a fairly constricted. Harwood uses the conversations of two people to get this message across, with the conversation discussing life’s progression with an old lover. “But for the grace of God…” suggests that the ex-lover is somewhat thankful for not ending up as a father figure to these children, as he can see the effect it has taken on her from when he used to know her. “Her clothes are out of date” shows her appearance has altered in the bid to live as a mother, her children are now her identity and that is what she will live to be. This poem is revolved around the negativity of losing yourself through mother-hood and the factors that slowly show that it.

First, it is clear that both Plath and Frost have differing views on aging, which can be seen through the tone of each of their poems. Plath uses a more laid back, mellow, and somber tone throughout her poem. This can be seen in the line, “Just as it is, unlisted by love or dislike” (Plath 3). This line shows that Plath sees aging as just a part of life. In contrast, Frost uses a different tone of regret at the beginning of the poem, but towards the end it turns more into acceptance and reassurance. His tone of regret can be seen in the line, “And sorry I could not travel both” (Frost 2). This shows the reader that at first he was wary of his decision. Then, the tone changes at the end to one of reassurance, which can be seen from the lines, “I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference” (Frost 19-20). In “Mirror” the narrator is the mirror, so the reader gets a secondhand perspective on a woman who is getting older. The mirror in the

It may seem like the mirrors are a simple afterthought and a way for the author to sound more descriptive. But after a second look, it’s not hard to tell that the mirrors have a deep connection to Melinda. A great example of this is within the first two weeks of school when Melinda gets home from school and goes up to her room, “I watch myself in the mirror across the room. Ugh. My hair is completely hidden under the comforter. I look for the shapes in my face. Could I put a face in my tree, like a dryad from greek mythology? Two muddy-circle eyes under black-dash eyebrows, piggy-nose nostrils, and a chewed up horror of a mouth” (Page 16). This quote shows how she feels ugly and can’t stand her appearance. Another great quote that shows the connection is when Melinda decides to re-decorate her room, “The first thing to go is the mirror. It is the screwed to the wall, so I cover it with a poster of Maya Angelou that the librarian gave me. She said Ms. Angelou was one of the greatest american writers” (Page 50). This was during a phase Melinda went through where she was truly in a bad place but wouldn’t just face the fact that she needed to tell someone about what had happened to her. Towards the end of the book Melinda gets more comfortable with mirrors as she also gets more comfortable talking again. The mirrors symbolize how Melinda feels about herself

Anderson tells a whole story through one object; a mirror. Melinda refuses to look into her own reflection after the incident at the party, she is always hiding or covering her mirrors. Hiding her reflection symbolizes Melinda hiding her problems. Looking into the mirror, she stares right at her flaws, bringing her

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

A third example is the mirrors. The mirror represents seeing oneself clearly and their self reflection. One example of this is Montag reflects his life when he meets Clarisse which she made a big impact on his life. She changed way he see the world and, she asked him one question. “Are you happy.”

Plath uses an intriguing personification to start off her poem as the mirror speaks as a human saying “I am a silver” and “I have no preconception”. A first person narrator as if the mirror is an object that express thing from an honest observation. The stanza demonstrates the goal of the mirror from the way it described itself. The objectivity of the mirror is even more accentuated in the second line when the poet writes “whatever I see I swallow immediately”. (Plath 2) Human qualities are also given to the mirror when it says “on the opposite wall, it is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long I think it is part of my

from a mirror to that of a lake. In doing so does the shift in message

The next stanza moves on to talk about how Plath's apprehension stops her from bonding with he child with these lines: "I'm no more your mother / Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow / Effacement at the wind's hand." Here Plath (the ‘cloud') is resenting giving birth to her image as it reminds her of her own inevitable mortality. The child is the mirror, which reflects the dissipation of the cloud.