MIRROR BY SYLVIA PLATH Cortez, Jonathan Lujan, Daniel Jimenez, Ivan Almaguer, Daniel English, Per. 2

Mirror, by Sylvia Plath, is not a riddle, speaking with the voice of some mysterious “I until the end, where the reader is shocked to find out that it’s a mirror, and not a person speaking. Instead, the poem lets us know from the start that we’re hearing from a mirror, with its title “Mirror”, and its first line, “I am silver and exact.” The first stanza describes the mirror, which seems to be like those people who don’t tell white lies - it’s truthful and exact, but not cruel. As the first stanza personifies the mirror, showing us some of its human characteristics, we also find out a little about the mirror’s life. Most of the time, it reflects a pink speckled wall, which could be found in any bathroom, but it also sees a lot of faces, as well as a lot of darkness. In the second stanza, and the stakes have changed, the mirror is no longer a mirror, but a lake which also shows reflections. And we get a whole new character: a woman. We saw faces in the first stanza, but now we focus on one face in particular. This woman, we find out, isn’t very satisfied with her reflection in the lake, so she tries to find a kinder reflection under the light of a candle or the moon. When the lake reflects her faithfully anyway, she cries and gets upset. In the last two lines of the poem, we see why this woman is so upset: in watery reflection, her past is drowning, and a horrible future is rising to meet her.

Line 1: “I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. “ While “Sylvia” might sound a little bit like silver, we’re pretty sure from this first- person declaration that Plath isn’t the speaker in this poem. Instead, we have to think back to the title. A mirror. We know mirrors don’t talk – but that just makes us more curious about what the this mirror is going to say. We know from looking at them that mirrors are silver and give us an exact reflection of what is in front of them. Line 2: “Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.” Now the personification gets a little weirder. We can imagine a person who is exact, who has no preconceptions, but a person who swallows everything he sees. That’s difficult. To figure out this line, it helps to think of what mirrors do to everything they see – they reflect it. Swallowing everything, then, is a metaphor for reflecting everything.

Line 3 “Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike” This line gives us more information about how the mirror is swallowing what it sees, while also confirming that we already know from the first line: the mirror is exact and has no preconceptions. The first part of the poem isn’t too complicated – we know that mirrors reflect things just as they are. But then we get to the second part of the line, where we find out that whatever the mirror swallows is “unmisted by love or dislike” Line 4-5 “I am not cruel, only truthful The eye of a little god, four-cornered” Notice how the word “god” isn’t capitalized in this line: it could refer to any god, even one in the guise of the mirror. The note that the god’s eye is “four-cornered” (square or rectangular) helps us complete – in a concise and graceful way – the image of the eye is she shape of a mirror.

Line 6 “Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.” This line tells us in a roundabout way what the mirror is facing: a wall. The line continues to personify the mirror – instead of facing it, or reflecting it, the mirror “meditates on” (or contemplates) the opposite wall. This implies that the mirror, an inanimate object, thinks. Line 7-8 “It is pink, wish speckles. I have looked at it for so long I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers” Now we find out more details about the opposite wall, which serves, as the object of the mirror’s meditation, or thoughts. The wall is speckled and pink. The color pink makes the wall seem feminine; this mirror is probably in a girl’s bedroom or bathroom. Next, the mirror tells us about its connection with the wall. Using enjambment, a literary device where a thought is split between two lines, the mirror tells us that it has looked at it for so long that it feels like the wall is part of its heart.

Line 9 “Faces and darkness separate us over and over.” Here we see why the wall flickers – because of faces and darkness. The faces come to look at the mirror, and then when they leave, they turn the light off, leaving the mirror to reflect nothing but the darkness. The way Plath has structured this lines makes us think that the mirror must be sad at this separation. If we didn’t know any better, we’d think that these two lines were part of a love poem from person to her beloved, and not from a mirror to a wall. Line 10 – 11 “Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me.” “Searching my reaches for what she really is.” With the new stanza, our poem switches: we’re no longer hearing from a mirror, but from a lake. Yet the speaker is conscious of this change – it sets up with the word “now”. We’re not quite sure what the lake looks like, but it must be pretty clear and still show reflections like a mirror. We wonder if the lake is as honest as the mirror, and if it misses the pink speckled wall.

Line 12 – 13 “ Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.” “ I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.” This woman is determined to find a way to reflect herself, to show something deeper than what is on the surface. After searching in the lake, she turns to face the moonlight and the candles to try and see a different reflection. The lake calls candles and the moon liars, because their light can warp sight, often hiding people’s blemishes and making them appear more beautiful. Line 14 “ She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.” This lake sure is proud, saying it’s important to the woman it reflects. But remember, this speaker is supposed to be truthful and exact, so maybe it’s right when it says that it’s important to this woman. The lake even gives proof to back up how important it is – it says the woman visits each morning, so that the lake then reflects the woman’s face instead of the dark at night. If this woman comes to look at the lake every morning, well then maybe it’s important to her.

Line 17 – 18 “ In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman” “ Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.” Now, the water becomes not just a calm mirror, but terrifying. In these two lines, drowning and rising in the lake metaphorically describe aging. This poem is written in free verse, which means that it has no set pattern of rhythm or rhyme. Yet, Plath uses rhythm and rhyme deliberately. While her lines have no repeating pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, they read gracefully and naturally.

1. When was Plath’s birth and death dated? 2. What published collections was she known for? 3. What type of poem is this? 4. How many stanzas are in this poem? 5. Is Plath the speaker in this poem? 6. In line 6, which “god” is she referring too? 7. What color are the walls, in which, the mirror is hung up on? 8. What is an enjambment? 9. What two colleges did she go to? 10. In which lines is an example to the usage of enjambment?