Mirror

By Syliva Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. The mirror is speaking, the exactness of the
mirror shows you things as it is, reality. The mirror makes no judgment or opinion.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately it takes whatever image is in front of it and spits it right
back out.
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. The mirror is not bias because it likes or dislike nothing
I am not cruel, only truthful ‚we should not see truth as cruelty, we should appreciate the
mirror’s honesty
The eye of a little god, four-cornered. The mirror is the eye of the little God, It is not affected by
emotion, and it cannot be fooled. It has the God-like quality of always seeing things for what
they are.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall. The mirror lays on the wall and reflects the wall
opposite to it.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long it is girly and bright colored, the pink and
speckles represents human emotions and the living environment of whoever owns the mirror.
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers. It becomes emotionally attached to the wall, due to
the fact that it’s seen the majority of the time. The brief interruption of the mirror reflecting the
wall
Faces and darkness separate us over and over. It’s interrupted by the owner using the mirror and
when night comes and the place is dark. It also shows time passing in the repetition, over and
over. The same thing is happening everyday.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, The lake is now the eye, which sees a woman
bending over it
Searching my reaches for what she really is. She’s searching the lake thoroughly, searching for
herself, identity, who she is. She’s trying to find who she is by her physical appearance alone.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. The woman’s comfort, that can create an
illusion of her
I see her back, and reflect on it faithfully. Turning her back on the truth, the mirror is loyal and
trustworthy
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands. She’s in tears because she’s unable to
accept the reality that she’s aging.
I am important to her. She comes and goes. She becomes addicted to her reflection, as she makes
it a habit to look at herself on a day to day basis
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness. She does this everyday, Allusion to the
story of snow white, the woman simply reflects what it sees.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman the change the woman has
undergone, as a dramatic shift
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish. The obsession with her own reflection, spends
her days grasping at her loss of youth and beauty.

SUMMARY
The “life” of a mirror owned by a woman recapping what it is seeing and what he has seen. The
monotony of the day to day occurrences set the scene for the poem and the plain and sagacious
way of speaking because of this we see that the mirror seems to be quite old. It recalls the
woman who seems to be the owner searching the mirror to find herself as she is now an old
woman who has spent time in the mirror since she was a young woman and now seems to be
going through a crisis trying to accept the image of herself in the mirror as she is now. She finds
alternative ways to view herself but she is unable to come to terms with aging and is trying to
grasp at her youth as her perception of her now old self causes her grief.
THEMES
● Identity
 ● Loss of Youth
● Woman vs Aging
● Depression
CONFLICT/TONE/.MOOD
● Man vs Self
● Tone
● Mood
IMPORTANT WORDS/ PHRASES

Stanza 1:

The poem begins with the mirror explaining what he is and sets the scene for it being a truthful
and reliable albeit monochromatic character. The first stanza is very slow-paced and calm as we
go through the day to day “life” of the mirror as it is a personified thing.

“I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow immediately” the
mirror gives no judgment but instead shows exactly what it sees. “I am not cruel, only truthful
--//The eye of a little god, four-cornered.” This sets up for the second stanza reinforcing the
statement that the mirror only reflects what is in front of it and does not form its own judgment.
The mirror refers to itself as a little god, a god is seen as the amplification of truth in the realm of
humans and what is said or shown by a god is considered to be the only truth.

The mirror continues to speak of the monotony of its existence as it sits facing the opposite wall
” pink with speckles”, “I have looked at it so long I think it is part of my heart.” The mirror has
faced this wall so long it seems to be a part of it as it would only reflect that surface. The fact
that the mirror is pink and has been pink so long even into the old age of the woman could this
be an attempt by the woman to latch on to something of the past and a semblance of her youth by
keeping the wall in the room that color. Also seeing that the color pink is a vibrant color
associated with youth.

“But it flickers.//Faces and darkness separate us over and over.” The flickering could be a
reference to time moving, darkness then light over and over again as each day passes. These last
two lines set up stanza two. Which faces are seen in the mirror?

Stanza 2:

“Now I am a lake”. They say that water has memories, the mirror referring to itself as a lake, a
large body of water that if looked on is usually reflective, it could hold memories, the memories
that this woman holds of the past. “A woman bends over me,//Searching my reaches for what she
really is.” The woman is unable to come to terms with the fact that she is now old , searching for
her youth, but the mirror only reflects what is in front of it and what it sees is an old lady.

She looks to other things to show a different image “Then she turns to those liars, the candles or
the moon.” The candle and the moon can only shed light on what is there and cannot reflect, they
only show shadows which are not the actual image which may be why the mirror calls them liars.

We see that the woman is not satisfied with the image that is shown by the mirror , we get the
feeling of melancholy from this stanza. She hates the image she now sees “I see her back, and
reflect it faithfully. //She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.” Seeing her image and
her trying it distort the image or rather her trying desperately to change what she sees.

“I am important to her. She comes and goes.//Each morning it is her face that replaces the
darkness” even though the woman hates the image she sees in the mirror she seems reliant on it
compelled to look each day. The mirror has seen her face every day since she was a young
woman aging until she now she is an old woman and now her reflection seems to be something
of a crisis or point of hurt for the woman .”In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old
woman//Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.”
 FIGURATIVE DEVICES
● Metaphor:
“In me she has drowned a young girl,”- the woman, she has been looking at the mirror since she
was a young woman now her youth has passed and she is now old
“I think it is part of my heart”- the mirror has been reflecting the wall for so long is has become a
standard part of its existence as it always there
● Simile:
“Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.” – making a comparison to the woman’s
reflection and her perception of herself as a terrible fish showing how much she disdains her
reflection.
Personification :
“Now I am a lake”-
“I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.” – the mirror is personified throughout the
poem as it is the narrator; it now gives itself more human qualities and refers to itself as a being.
● Imagery:
“It is pink, with speckles.”- the description of the wall allowing us to imagine the wall
“But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.” we can imagine the moving of faces, the darkness
and the light which give the impression of time moving