The Mirror In Sylvia Plath's Mirror

Saying Sylvia Plath was a troubled woman would be an understatement. She was a dark poet, who attempted suicide many times, was hospitalized in a mental institution, was divorced with two children, and wrote confessional poems about fetuses, reflection, duality, and a female perspective on life. Putting her head in an oven and suffocating was probably the happiest moment in her life, considering she had wanted to die since her early twenties. However, one thing that was somewhat consistent throughout her depressing poetry would be the theme of the female perspective. The poems selected for analysis and comparison are, ”A Life”(1960),”You’re”(1960), “Mirror” (1961), “The Courage of Shutting-Up” (1962) and

Can a mirror reflects our feelings? This is a question that all of the readers of this poem have done at least one time. Imagery is the use of words to stimulate one or more of the five senses. In the case of Same Song the visual sense stimulated is the visual sense. It is stimulated through the use of very descriptive details of the entire life; the morning and night of two kids of the persona. In poem Same Song by Pat Mora, the author uses visual imagery to characterize a young man and a young woman that are uncomfortable with how they look.

The mirror on the bedroom wall examines the public perception of her private life. Looking only at its reflection, the audience cannot tell the room is in a mess; the rosebush and the dirt trail are not apparent to the audience. In the mirror, only the back of woman’s head is evident. Her face and her emotions are hidden from the mirror. It appears as if she is doing an ordinary task; she could very well be sitting on the bed, reading a book. She turns her back to the mirror and denies it a true reflection.

James believed that his true self was the reflection he saw in the mirror. He believed the boy there was locked inside. James would play with boy and tell him his problems. Despite this, James hated him. He hated that the boy didn’t feel the ache that James felt. He was free, never hungry, had his own bed and had a mother who wasn’t white.

It is easy to speculate the different meanings of the artwork by the position of the body and the mirrors. For example, a woman looking straight out to the viewer with the mirror turned away could symbolize the woman has something to hide. The woman’s back turned towards the viewer with the mirrors reflection straight on could symbolize vanity. Or in the case of Triptych of Earthly Vanity and Divine Salvation the woman and mirror could both be visible to the viewer to show she is openly vain. And as stated previously a woman’s back reflected in the mirror could show impurity. Mirrors in art tend to be extraordinary, and it is not fanciful to believe that the development of the glass mirror is based on civilization although it can also be altered by the whole perception of human beings. The glass mirrors have affected the transformation referred as the Renaissance

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

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.”

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.

This can be seen as an abstract form of revenge because the mirror cannot actually make someone do something due to the fact that it is not living. Another piece of text that incorporates both the concrete and the abstract concepts of revenge would be the song You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette. The song states “Cause the love that you gave that we made wasn't able to make it enough for you to be open wide, no” (Morissette 1). The idea of abstract revenge is present her because the author does not mention any concrete ideas, instead she focuses on an abstract idea,

(Mirror, Sylvia Plath, line 9) reflects how the poem can be observed as sorrowful. It also can be shown as nostalgic with this line “ In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman”. Both poems have a melancholy

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

The song “Mirrors” utilizes strategies that portray to true love, romance, and the reflection of oneself to express his deepest feeling toward his partner even though he is no longer around her physically. Throughout every chorus, the speaker repeats, over and over, how his partner is the other half of him to make him a full person. For example, in the first line of the chorus the lovable speaker states that, “I’m looking right at the other half of me.” Unlike most situations, this situation calls for both himself and his partner to look into the mirror. By doing so the speaker will see his partner’s reflection and his partner will see the speaker’s reflection.