Mirror

By Sylvia Plath

Presenting by Zainab Al-Elyawi

 Biography
SYLVIA PLATH

AMERICAN POET AND NOVELIST, SHE WAS BORN IN MASSACHUSETTS OCTOBER 27, 1932.
HER FATHER DIED FROM DIABETES WHEN SHE WAS ONLY 8 YEARS OLD.
SHE RECEIVED A SCHOLARSHIP TO ATTEND SMITH COLLEGE IN 1950
SHE STRUGGLED WITH PERSISTED DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY WHICH LED HER TO
ELECTROSHOCK THERAPY, WHICH INCREASED HER ANXIETIES.
SHE MET TED HUGHES HER FUTURE HUSBAND IN CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND , THEY HAD TWO
CHILDREN.
IN 1962 PLATH KNEW ABOUT HER HUSBAND CHEATING ON HER, AND AFTER THEY DIVORCED SHE
MOVED WITH HER CHILDREN TO LONDON.
SHE COMMITTED A SUICIDE ON FEBRUARY 1963.
ONLY SINGLE VOLUME OF HER POETRY WAS PUBLISHED DURING HER LIFETIME, HUGHES EDITED
MANY OF HER WORKS INCLUDING THE COLLECTED POEMS, WHICH WON THE PULITZER PRIZE IN
1982.
THE MIRROR WAS WRITTEN IN 1961 ONLY TWO YEARS BEFORE HER SUICIDE.
 Mirror
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.
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 candles 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.
 Themes

Identity: search for self

this poem presents different levels of the individual’s search for self.
• by the woman who gaze into the lake each day searching for her
identity, the woman search is genuin and the lake is important to her,
but she cannot accept the reflection she sees, nor the truth of herself.
She drowned the girl she once was, and replaced her with a miserable
old woman. Or that how she sees herself.
 Themes
Identity: search for self
• we have a questioned identity of the narrator ( Mirror/ lake )
In the first stanza the mirror takes on the qualities of a person, describing itself as a
disinterested observer that has no judgment on whatever stands before it, but this has
been undermined by the connection that the mirror made with the pink speckled wall,
that it gazed at all day, believing that it was part of its heart. And when people use the
mirror they interrupting the mirror and separating it from a part of itself, its heart.
In the second stanza the identity of the narrator is more complicated, because the
mirror claims to be a lake.
The lake have the same voice of the mirror, and although mirror reflection is clearer,
both of the lake and the mirror have the reflective qualities. The narrator have no
accurate understanding of itself,the narrator defends itself for not being cruel, but the
woman sees that it is cruel because of the image it reflects back to her.
 Themes
Death

Death appears in this poem in many forms

• fisrt the mirror which is passive and nonjudgmental, but then it turns into a
malevolent lake that from its depth an image of the woman mortality rises “
like a terrible fish “
•The mirror is not gentle it swallo whatever it sees, and the lake also
swallowed the young girl who had been drowned by the old women who
replaces her.
 Themes
Sex Roles
In Sylvia Plath’s poem Mirror, sex roles are explored through various aspects
• the woman who looks into the mirror reveals the influence of societal pressures
on her. she believes that her worth depends on her physical appearance, if she
loses her beauty then she will no longer have a value.
Her obsession with aging and appearance reflects how women are often judged
by their physical beauty.
and this leads women to question their identity, self-worth.
and the expectations placed on women by society,make a woman wonders if she
has no function but to reflect the achievements of her husband and children, like
a mirror.
Although the woman bends over lake to see her reflection as Narcissus , the woman gets sad and angry by
her own image, rather than being in love and happiness like Narcissus did.
 Themes
Language and Meaning

The mirror that swallows and reflects everything it sees: is a metaphor for
the poet, for poetry, or for representational art.
the mirror’s claims for being objectivity recall the
claims of the art and artist for being realistic, and that they don’t invent ,
they merely reflect what’s already there .
 Criticism
Jeannine Johnson
Jeannine Johnson argues that the mirror just as a lake symbolizes more than just reflection—it captures the
woman’s emotional struggle with aging. The woman’s tears metaphorically “fill” the lake, making it a reflection of
both her inner turmoil and the passage of time. The poem’s closing images—drowning a young girl and a “terrible
fish” surfacing—represent the woman’s loss of youth and the inevitability of old age. The word “drowned” suggests
that the woman’s obsession with her aging appearance has caused her to lose parts of herself, both her younger self
and her present identity.

The mirror’s shape and function as “the eye of a little god” are tied to poetry itself, which also reflects truth and
reveals deeper meanings. Even the poem’s structure, with two equal stanzas, resembles a mirror. Johnson notes
that the title “Mirror” functions both as a noun (an object) and as a verb (to reflect), emphasizing the active,
transformative nature of poetry. Just as the mirror reflects the woman’s image, the poem reflects the reader’s
thoughts and emotions, offering truth rather than comfort.

Johnson concludes that the reader’s experience mirrors the woman’s encounter with her reflection: both come to
the poem (or mirror) with expectations but are faced with uncomfortable truths. This warns against looking too
deeply into poetry for meaning or reassurance, as it will only reflect back what is already true, even if the truth is
unsettling.
 Criticism
William Freedman
William Freedman analyzes how Sylvia Plath uses the mirror in her poem Mirror to explore the self-destructive
qualities and complex imagery of a woman’s search for identity. For many women writers, the mirror represents a
search for the self, especially for women artists. In the poem, the mirror reflects a woman, who sees herself both as
the mirror and the person reflected. This search for identity is also tied to societal pressures, with the mirror
reflecting the idealized image of youth and beauty.

The “terrible fish” that appears at the end of the poem symbolizes the fear of aging and the destructive
consequences of being trapped in a passive role. Plath’s poem also reflects her struggle with being a woman writer in
a male-dominated literary world. The mirror represents the tension between being a passive reflector of male ideals
and striving for an autonomous, self-defined identity.

Freedman argues that the poem critiques the societal expectations placed on women, especially the role of mothers,
who are expected to sacrifice their identity for others. The “terrible fish” at the end shows the conflict between
these expectations and the woman’s desire for independence and self-expression. Plath’s poetry, through the
mirror, explores the complex battle between societal roles and personal autonomy.