SYLVIA PLATH

Mirror

BACKGROUND OF THE POEM

The poem was written by Sylvia Plath in 1961. It

was published by Faber and Faber eight years after

her death in 1971 as part of the collection Crossing

the Water.

FIRST STANZA

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.

Whatever I see I swallow immediately

Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.

I am not cruel, only truthful,

The eye of a little god, four-cornered.

Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.

It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long

I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.

Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

WHAT IT MEANS...

In the opening line of the poem, the mirror proclaims “I am silver and

exact. I have no preconceptions.” Throughout the entire poem,

personification is the most prominent element. While the outside world

is critical, judgmental, and harsh, the mirror points out that it is

always and “only truthful.” It accepts both things and people for what

they are without trying to change them. The mirror is “the eye of a

little god,” that has looked at the wall for so long opposite of it that it

has become “part of my heart.” The only thing that separates the

mirror from the wall are the “faces and darkness,” that pass by and

“flicker.”

SECOND STANZA

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,

Searching my reaches for what she really is.

Then she turns to those liars, the candle or the moon.

I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.

She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.

I am important to her. She comes and goes.

Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.

In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman.

Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

WHAT IT MEANS…

The mirror has changed identities and is now a lake. A woman is looking at herself,

searching…for what she really.” As she ages, she does not like what she sees. It does

not understand that the woman is not searching for her true self, but only

demonstrating her obsession with her physical appearance. She relies cosmetics, such

as candles or the moon, in order to comfort herself and try to hide her aging. Instead

of receiving the gratitude the mirror thinks it deserves, it receives “tears and an

agitation of hands.” The woman is not pleased with what she sees every day in the

lake. The metaphor in the last two lines compares the woman to a fish. Fish are

generally very unattractive and ugly creatures and aging can make a woman feel the

same way. Her youth has passed and aging is gaining on her. The woman has come to

the point in her life where she has realized her youth is gone, and age has risen

towards her “like a terrible fish.”

THEME

Pain comes with losing ones innocence and youth

because society values beauty and youthfulness

more than the truth.

ANALYSIS

Point of View: First Person

Speaker: The mirror/lake

Type: Free Verse