Mirror: Sylvia Plath Essay

Sylvia Plath is the author of the poem reflect, written in the primordial 1960s. Plath had a history of severe depression collect to her fathers death when she was a child and her failed attempts of suicide throughout her life. Many of her poems job her emotions, whether they be sad, angry or depressing, and Mirror is virtuoso of those poems. Mirror deals with the effect of a womanhoods self-consciousness and her narcissism in a way that is preposterous, yet truly effective to the subscriber. Part of the unusual tantrum of this poem is that the entire piece is written from the perspective of the reflect.This is just unmatchable lesson of the personification utilise in Mirror. A nonher example is The eye of a little god which contains the womans vanity in the way that it is almost a self-worshipping and the fact that the reverberate is a very powerful item. This one line depicts the womans mint of what the reflect is to her and her image. The mirror is given legio n(predicate) different actions throughout the poem. For example, I meditate on the opposite wall and I have looked at it so long both describe the mirror performing very human actions and this gives the mirror a personality.The doctor on the ref is one of interest and curiosity and this continues throughout Mirror when the theme of personification is explored tear d hold further. The mirror is claimed to be exact and truthful in this piece. There is a word in almost every line that continues this theme until the ref gets to line 14 She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands. There are a few interesting techniques used in this to make the commentator question the truthfulness of the mirror. For example it is an oxymoron as tears are comm however regarded as a bad thing and to be rewarded is usually something good. only those five spoken language make the contributor think that the mirror could potentially have emotions, and a dark side. The impact on the reader at th is point is huge as the mirrors personality is not only one of cruelty but it had been lying and saying it was fair. The words I am are repeated several measure in the poem and is some other example of personification as the mirror is not a being yet it is still calling itself I. This dispositions that the mirror is very important and thinks highly of itself, yet further continuing the personification.A woman appears in this poem and is similar to Narcissus, who stared at his reflection in a river and didnt dare touch the water or go away in fear of losing his image. He eventually died of thirst due to his own vanity. The woman clearly treasures the mirror and the mirror knows this I am important to her and she is said to repeatedly use the mirror many times a twenty-four hours for quite a while, as shown by the references to a corking ephemeral of time in she comes and goes and twenty-four hours after day.Plath uses this form of repetition very hale in describing a passing of time and making it seem as if no time had passed at all for the reader which leaves an impact. The woman isnt mentioned until the middle of Mirror, when the mirror personifies itself as a lake and that the woman was bent over it, which is yet another link to the Narcissus myth. Shortly thereafter, the poem describes the candles and the moon as liars as they only shed a little light upon her features and dont show every little detail as the mirror does.When the woman observes her own reflection in the mirror she was very distraught and started crying which shows the reader that she didnt like the way that she looked and went back every day to pass judgment and discover what she really was on the inside. However, the line that has the largest impact on the reader are the very last lines of the poem In me she has drowned a younker girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish. These lines especially the final one make the reader blow out of the water and horrified at the womans horrible self image.For mortal to think of themselves as a terrible fish is almost inconceivable yet the woman feels so strongly about this image that she is openly admitting that she looks like one. Additionally, these two lines continue on with the original themes of the poem to frustrate that phrase. In me she has drowned is an ext deathed metaphor of the lake description and day after day continues the theme of time passing by quickly. As previously explored, Plath has used many powerful poetic techniques to have a huge impact on the reader.Although it is a short poem only 18 lines it absolutely outlines the themes of vanity and superficiality and the pain this can cause a person. The unusual narrator in this poem gives the reader an entirely different pedestal on vanity what it actually looks like from an unbiased source. The poem outlines many aspects of vanity and all of its cruel components that makes the reader contemplate what i t really agent to be vain. An obvious effective technique used was personification of the mirror and the candles and the moon.This gives the reader a sensation that an animate object is narrating when it is only a mirror something so simple and ordinary that it completely changes the perspective of the poem. To conclude, Mirror is a very powerful piece of literature that was written with great expertise. Plath successfully used many poetic techniques and utilised them effectively. Both the tendency in which it was written and the narrator deal with the topic of self-image very well and gives the reader a great impact.Secondly, the use of the surprising language in the poem had a great effect. The word fish at the end is completely different to the rest of the poem which makes it stand out greatly. The reader doesnt expect such a vulgar description of the woman and that impact is also huge. Finally, the message portrayed in Mirror was delivered very well. It says that we should loo k beyond the superficial and value what we are on the inside, something that Plath had struggled with over her life.