Sylvia Plath (1932 – 1963)
“Mirror”
Plath was born in 1932 and died by suicide in February 1963.
She struggled with her mental health, and attempted suicide on
more than one occasion.
Plath was clinically depressed for most of her adult life, and was
treated multiple times with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).
She is reported to have had an IQ of around 160, and was
fiercely ambitious.
She married the poet, Ted Hughes, in 1956. They separated in
1962 after she discovered he was having an affair. Their
marriage was tumultuous.
The poet Robert Lowell and writer Anne Sexton encouraged
Plath to write from her experience and she did so. She openly
discussed her depression with Lowell and her suicide attempts
with Sexton, who led her to write from a more female
perspective. Plath began to consider herself as a more serious,
focused poet and short-story writer.
Confessional Poets
• Plath is a “Confessional poet” in that she engaged with the darker aspects of her life.
• “Confessional poets” address trauma, death, depression and relationships in an
autobiographical manner. It focuses on the “I”.
• It is raw, fearless, emotive, and unflinching.
• The form is often criticised for being self-indulgent.
• Poet and novelist Lavinia Greenlaw says, “No one wants to be called a confessional poet…
It suggests all you do is blurt your feelings. [But] to work explicitly with the self requires
extraordinary judgement, detachment and control.”
• These poets aren’t simply wailing into the void. They are still working within the constraints
of poetry and were concerned with crafting poetry.
• A confessional poem centres on the self and is blatantly honest. The poetry explores any
so-called shame without apology.
The “mirror”
• The mirror gives an autobiographical account of itself from its
own point of view.
• It is not responsible for any pain it causes because it reflects
exactly what it sees. This is part of its nature.
• It is an inanimate object that defines itself and its function
exactly.
• Although it is inanimate, it is given consciousness.
• Plath is asking the reader to look at how we present ourselves
to the mirror and to ourselves.
The mirror is unbiased
and objective and has no
prejudices / ideas /
opinions because it has
accurate OR demanding/punishing no memory or the ability
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. to reason.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately The mirror makes no judgements that may
blur or distort. It will “show back” precisely
what it “sees”. It cannot exaggerate or
conceal.
Just as it is, unmisted
objective by love or dislike.
The mirror is unaffected by feelings / emotions. It does not
project feelings onto what it sees. The mirror thinks that
humans are incapable of impartiality? Being “unmisted” is
crucial for the mirror because it needs to reflect accurately.
The poet personifies the mirror. It has a direct and
straightforward “voice”. The mirror does not pass moral
judgements, but it does understand the woman who owns it. It
also makes the bold claim that it exists.
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
“see” and “immediately” = internal rhyme “swallow” suggests the mirror has
Whatever I see I swallow immediately agency, and could be threatening.
Looking into a mirror can be
dangerous and we need to “digest”
our reflections to make sense of
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. ourselves.
The sibilance (a hissing sound that is
musical), internal rhyme and enjambment
contribute to the swiftness of the
action/absence of hesitation.
The mirror does not flatter or insult. It has no harsh/cruel intentions of its own - it reflects
appearance truthfully. It prizes honestly over sensitivity. It also truthfully “tells” the
woman that she is aging and perhaps forces her to confront her own mortality.
I am not cruel, only truthful‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
I am not cruel, only truthful‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
A metaphor: literally, the mirror is rectangular. Figuratively, it sees everything in
the world / is omnipresent. “god” could imply that the mirror sees itself as
superior, but “little” diminishes its power. Do humans give mirrors god-like
qualities?
“eye” also suggests that it does not reflect the world passively, but looks at the
world actively.
thinks / reflects deeply and
stares steadily
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
The mirror “swallows” all that it sees. The fact that the mirror “thinks” the wall is part of its heart
reveals that it knows it has no heart / feelings / human life force. The wall also “flickers” and they are
“separate[d]” which also indicate that the mirror is aware that it has no heart. OR is the mirror
admitting that it does have feelings and “loves” the wall?
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
the mirror and the wall
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Continues the idea that the mirror is active/involved. The mirror is a sage
(wise and immortal). The mirror is actively aware of the wall.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
The mirror is acutely aware of the wall because it has spent so long studying it.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
The mirror seems to regret any separation from the wall.
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Repetition contributes to
rhythm and cohesion
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
The woman is searching for her lost beauty and youth because she cannot reconcile herself
to her changed appearance. She could also be searching for her true self / self-
understanding. She longs to find out something important about herself.
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
“candles” and “moon” do not reveal the woman’s blemishes because of their dimmed light /
are untruthful shadows. This gives the woman a false sense that age has not affected her
appearance. They show her what she wants to see, not the truth. They romanticise.
Metaphor: the mirror imagines that it is now a lake. Both a mirror and a lake absorb
reflections.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Shift in outlook and reasoning
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Contemptuous tone?
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
This could be an allusion to the Greek myth about Narcissus. He was a
beautiful young man who was so transfixed by his appearance that he died
because he could not tear himself away from a river that reflected his looks.
This is ironic because the woman cannot love herself.
emphasises “truthfully” in
line 1
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
The woman cries and wrings her hands – she is distressed / disappointed
by what she sees. Perhaps the woman is vain and superficial, and cannot
accept the reality of aging and her own mortality. The mirror understands
her distress as she believes she is turning into a hag. It could also mean
that the woman experiences a crisis between her “inner” and “outer” self.
Ambiguous: the woman physically turns
her back on the mirror, but also suggests
reciprocity with the lake looking back at
the woman.
The mirror could see
itself as the woman’s
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully. servant.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
Irony? Has the mirror misinterpreted the
woman’s actions/feelings? This
contradicts the mirror’s claim that it is
simply impassively observing its world.
The mirror states its relationship with the woman: it is
significant to the woman and she cannot ignore it. Is the
I am important
woman to her. She comes and goes.
the mirror’s servant?
Each morning it is her face that replaces“darkness” in line 9 as well
the darkness.
It could be that the woman is just as important to the mirror. Its existence is
monotonous. When the woman comes into view, the world becomes messy,
unsettling, complicated, emotional, and vivid. Thus, the mirror is "no longer a
boundary but a limninal [a space of transition] and penetrable space." It reflects more
than an image - it reflects its own desires and understanding about the world.
The woman has grown up looking at the mirror, and it is her companion and
confidante. A shocking image because the “young girl” is dead.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
extremely disagreeable / unpleasant and causing
terror. Also sinister. The woman finds her appearance
repulsive/alien, and she finds it very difficult to
reconcile herself to it.
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
The woman sees her young self disappear and her old self rises to meet her. The
“young woman” has metaphorically “drowned” – she is forever lost – and the woman
draws closer to death. Her search is futile because her youth cannot be recaptured.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Repetition contributes to
rhythm and cohesion
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
A simile that compares the act of rising to a fish that is trapped in a
pond / sea of time. She has no grace or elegance, and the woman
is shocked by what she sees OR it could represent the
unavoidable, darker self that cannot help but challenge the socially
acceptable self.
The last two lines are
abrupt and pointed.
Is “Mirror” only about aging and mortality?
• The woman could be observing her psyche / soul / mind.
• As a result, she could be wrestling with her “exterior” and
“interior” lives.
• Thus, the “false” outer self of appearance and “true” inner self.
• The woman is trying to discern and come to terms with her
“true” self.
• She desires self-understanding and yearns to discover what is
important about her.
Is the mirror as objective as it would like the reader
to believe?
• It may be that the mirror longs for communication and
dialogue.
• It does dominate and interpret its world: “god, four-cornered”.
• Therefore, it is powerful. Although “little” may suggest
otherwise.
• It also shapes the reader’s view of what it sees.
• Plath is asking the reader to look at how we present ourselves
to the mirror and to ourselves.
Is the mirror as objective as it would like the reader
to believe? (continued)
• It could also be asking us to explore the relationship between
subjective and objective experience: do we distort the world
because we interpret it? The mirror does seem to misinterpret
the woman’s distress as she looks at her reflection.
Themes
• The anguish of aging: the horror and difficulty of
confronting aging.
• Mortality
• Society’s expectations of women, and their
appearance. There is a definite sense that Plath is
criticising the patriarchy that values women for their
appearance above all else.
• Tension between “inner” and “outer” selves: the woman
has not changed intrinsically, but her appearance has.
Themes (continued)
• The discrepancies we see in the mirror are created by our own
psyches / self-conscious perceptions. Reflections are a projection
of what we think / feel about ourselves.
• People may want to discover something deeper about
themselves, and appearances can only reveal so much.
• The mirror might present a seemingly objective representation of
how the woman looks (even reflecting her image “truthful[ly]” and
"faithfully"), but it will never be able to reveal the whole truth
about who she is as a person. There is, after all, much more to
people than what meets the eye.
Tone
• bitter
• melancholic
• The mirror itself seems confident, even arrogant,
because of the consistent “I am”.
• matter-of-fact
• definite
Structure
• free verse – no rhyme and largely irregular metre
• varying line lengths
• verges on a dramatic monologue
• The poem’s structure is “catoptric” (relating to a mirror, a
reflector or reflection): the mirror describes while it
represents its own structure; this is done through the use of
two nine-line stanzas which are both symmetrical, and
indicative of opposition.
• mostly short, simple sentences are used that contribute to the
matter-of-fact and definite way in which the mirror “speaks”.
Bibliography
Mirror Poem Summary and Analysis | LitCharts
Mirror by Sylvia Plath - Poem Analysis
Sylvia Plath: Poems “Mirror” Summary and Analysis | GradeSaver
A Short Analysis of Sylvia Plath’s ‘Mirror’ – Interesting Literature
Macrat Poetry Pack IEB HL Grade 12 2023ff
A Beginner's Guide to Confessional Poetry (bookriot.com)
