Summary Of The Poem Mirror By Sylvia Plath

Poets, Judith Wright, Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickenson all express their views on life and death, however, do so in varying manners. Through imagery, Wright and Plath both consider life’s beginnings, however, Wright considers it to be a beautiful gift, whereas Plath views birth as an empty burden. Subsequently, through structure Dickenson and Wright each acknowledge life, expressing how in some cases it is difficult, yet in other circumstances it is celebrated. Finally, through tone, Dickenson and Plath convey their views on death, yet differ in that Plath believes it is purifying and holds a sick fascination with it, while Dickenson instead holds a unique curiosity about it. Therefore, whilst each poet recognises the journey of birth,

In “Mirror” by Sylvia Plath, the speaker is represented as a mirror that reflects the life and actions of another human being. The speaker develops a casually detached tone right from the beginning of the poem, but also portrays an accepting mood by the end of the work. These tones and moods are expressed through the use of diction, punctuation, metaphors, and imagery. The tone of this poem fluctuates and makes it difficult for the reader to grasp the emotions of the speaker due to the fact that it is a very short piece.

Picasso is a bold painter where he dismisses the idea of the background being a backdrop and assisting the main subject matter and instead incorporates it, making it just as extreme as the main focal point of the painting. ‘Girl Before a Mirror’ 1932 (1.62 m x 1.3 m) painted in Picasso’s cubism period depicts a girl named Marie Therese Walter who was painted numerous times by Picasso during the 1930 's. This painting is open to multiple interpretations. One of these is through symbolism in response to the girl’s face. The face is painted with a side and front profile. One side displays the daytime where she seems more like a woman, pampered with her make up done. The other side represents her at night with the rough charcoal texture; the time where she removes the mask of makeup, and becomes more vulnerable as a young female. This contrasts with another interpretation of the girl being self-conscious of her flaws and insecurities that she tries to hide with makeup. Picasso uses basic lines and shapes to form the body but still successfully portrays the woman both in side and front profile as she looks into a mirror that reflects someone she is not. In reality, she depicts a beautiful pregnant woman with artificial, round breasts and small eyes. The prominent interpretation of this painting is the woman staring at her reflection seeing herself as an old woman. Picasso uses vivid and radiant colours to depict the woman however in her reflection, he uses dark and gloomy

In today’s day and age, it seems that some would do anything to erase a crease in their forehead, or a crinkle on the outskirts of an eye. Because time is something that we can never get back, growing older is an idea that many try to deny, especially in today’s society. Told from a mirror’s point of view, the mirror in the poem witnesses the truth of what it means to age. Sylvia Plath’s poem, Mirror, is a poem that deals with the truths and lies in the struggle a woman goes through when grasping the reality of aging. The poem is appealing due to the ways in which Plath successfully uses personification, figurative language, and diction in her writing to emphasize this idea, as well how the concept of keeping up appearances and

     Sylvia Plath's "Mirror," shows a truly thoughtful look into the different sights and feelings a mirror would have if it were a live conscious being, unable to lie. By showing the thoughts and emotions that a mirror would emit, Plath makes you look inward towards how you present yourself not only to your mirror but also to yourself. This is an eye-opening poem because of its truthful descriptions of the relationship between the inner feelings of people and how their outward appearances that they portray of themselves affect them in and out of the public realm. Examples of this are put throughout the poem "Mirror," and can be found in just about every line of the poem.

Eventually, the moonlight reveals bars behind the wallpaper as well as a clear contour of a woman. This may be interpreted as the intense struggle enhanced at night time, the time when the narrator has to spend with her husband. Night time may also serve to symbolize a forceful necessity to perform sexual relations with her husband. Ultimately I think the narrator starts recognizing herself behind that pattern. Gilbert and Gubar argue that the literary woman frequently finds herself starring with horror at a fearful image of herself that has been mysteriously inscribed on the surface of the glass, and she tries to guess the truth that cannot be uttered by the wounded or bleeding mouth […], and secretly seeks to unify herself by coming to terms with her fragmentation (1365). I interpret this passage to mean that the narrator recognizes her own reflection

The word “daddy” generally refers to the notion of the benignity and protectiveness of or befitting a father. It is a quite positive term and a source of happiness and ultimate fountain of love for children. Here, the term is shown quite negatively and a father has become the cause of unhappiness and mental destruction for the poet. The poem opens with the negative tone and shows how the poet has suffered because of her father’s absence. The poet calls her father as God in the beginning and then as the poem goes the figure of Godly “daddy” turns into the devilish one. She wishes to come out of the memory of her father as she says,

In the poem “Mirrors”, by Sylvia Plath the speaker accentuates the importance of looks as an aging woman brawls with her inner and outward appearance. Employing an instance of self refection, the speaker shifts to a lake and describes the discrepancies between inevitable old age and zealous youth. By means of sight and personification, shifts and metaphors, the orator initiates the change in appearance which relies on an individual’s decision to embrace and reject it.

“Mirror” by Sylvia Plath is a short lyric poem written with no rhyme scheme as it is written in free verse. However, the poem has a nice flow to it, as the words fluctuate gracefully through each line. Plath heavily uses imagery and symbolism in this lyric poem as this can be observed in the first stanza. In addition to the types of literary devices Plath uses continually throughout her poem, she also has set her poem in two locations. In the first verse, the setting is in a bathroom, one can infer this through her use of imagery. The second known setting is a lake, but as a reader, we do not know much about this lake. The one thing that is quite odd about this poem is the narrative, as Plath uses personification to give

Everyone knows that life is hard. But for some, it’s as if life itself picked them out to labor the worst of what it has to offer. Sylvia Plath was a confessional poet, using her personal experiences and very real situations to give “negative” emotions the artistic charm and characteristics traditionally saved for “positive” emotions. Her father died in her eighth year of life, and although this event tormented her until her own death, time went on. She married Ted Hughes, the two of them encouraging each other’s careers as much as they could, but still there was tension between them. It was when Plath learnt of her husband’s infidelity in the fall of 1962, that her poetry enhanced both in quality and depth. She began writing about her own

In Sylvia Plath’s poem, “Mirror” we are looking at two perspectives within it. One may be so obvious to us while the other one is very subtle. The most obvious perspective is the mirror itself but the other one is the woman looking at her reflection. When we think about the perspective of the mirror, we imagine ourselves as an inanimate object that yet still has its own thoughts about what it sees. Taking the perspective as the woman we imagine ourselves as we are when we look in the mirror or we imagine the viewpoint from someone who is aging, worn down and feels defeated.

“Mirror” was used to help the reader reflect on what they were going through by accounting the experiences of Plath. With time a woman who was once a young child started becoming a worn old woman, who was compared to an “ugly fish” in the poem. The use of metaphors, symbolism, and imagery brought all those aspects of what many compare aging and appearance to but this poem did it in such an imaginative and beautiful way that the reader didn't realize what pained Sylvia Plath and what ultimately led to her

Initially, I wanted to copy my poem from last year as I had no idea what to write about. I did not do this because fear of failure prevented me from cheating. It was from this anxiety that this poem was inspired. The intended purpose of this poem was to convey how trying to succeed in year twelve stresses me out. I wanted to mirror Sylvia Plath’s expression of her mental illness through extended metaphors in her poem Ariel. Where Plath uses the extended metaphor of the fairy tale character `Ariel as a metaphor for her depression, my poem highlights anxiety through the extended metaphor of bed sheets.

Sylvia Plath’s, Mirror, takes hold of a young girl’s misery with her reflection. The poem’s narrator is the mirror, that witnesses accounts of the girl's miserable life. The girl ridicules her image, every day of her life, by looking into the mirror and watching closely her imperfections taking over. As the girl grows older, the mirror becomes abundant with the girl’s sorrow towards her figure. The girl is drowning in her self-loathing and can’t find a way to overcome her reflection.

Mirror, mirror on the wall; who’s the fairest of them all? And she, whose fairness inspired such awe; why, oh why, is she the one who never saw? Shown in this picture is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. She is my mother - clothed in a fine silk western style gown adorned with delicate floral embroidery – on her wedding day, a day meant to be eternally cherished as a celebration of love. While my mother does recall that day as a day of jubilance and joyous festivities, her recollection is also tinted with a slight shadow of sadness and even, dare I say, regret.