Sylvia Plath’s Mirror: Summary and Critical Appreciation

Sylvia Plath’s Mirror: Summary and Critical Appreciation

   The poem is not at all enigmatic about its speaker as the very first line reveals the identity of the speaker-‘I am silver and exact’. In this poem the mirror describes its existence and its owner who grows older as the mirror watches. The first stanza describes the mirror, which seems to be like one of those people who don’t tell white lies-it’s truthful and exact but not cruel. The mirror describes itself as silver and exact. It is not judgemental about anybody but merely swallows what it perceives and reflects it back without any alteration. It considers itself a four cornered eye  of God, which sees everything for what it is .Most of the time the mirror looks across the empty room and meditates on the pink speckled wall  It has looked at the wall for so long that it describes the wall as ‘part of my heart’. The image of the wall is interrupted only by people who enter to look at themselves and the darkness that comes with night. The mirror imagines itself as a lake. A woman looks into it trying to discern who she really is by gazing at her reflection .Sometimes the woman prefers to look at herself in the candlelight or moon light, but these are liars because they mask her true appearance. Only the mirror gives her a faithful representation of herself.  Because of this honesty, the woman cries and wrings her hands. Nevertheless she can refrain from visiting the mirror over and over again.  Over the years the woman has ‘drowned a young girl’ in the mirror and now she sees  in her reflection an older woman, growing older day by day .The reflection of the old woman rises towards the owner of the reflection ‘ like a terrible fish.’

  The narrator of the poem is a wall mirror which is situated in what is likely a lady’s bedroom. The mirror has been personified here for the sake of serving the poetic purpose. As it is endowed human traits it makes the mirror capable of understanding monotony, human emotions, and apprehension. But it does not offer any moral judgement. It is able to observe and understand its owner as she grapples with the reality of aging.

   Compared to other Plath’s poem this one is difficult to analyse. The pivotal themes prevalent in this particular poem are time, appearance, old age, self-deception and frustration. The owner of the mirror struggles to reconcile herself with the fact that she is growing old day by day, which means loss of beauty and youth. Though she occasionally deludes herself with flattering liars like, the candle light, the moonlight, but in the mirror the truth is inescapably noticed by her making her even more frustrated .The mirror reflects an unadulterated image of the woman ,even though it is often discomforting, causing her ‘tears and agitation in hands.’

    The poem surely reminds the Greek myth of Narcissus and the legend of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It also reveals the conflict of the inner and outer self of an aging woman. The outer self is more eager to nurture the delusional belief that her beauty is permanent .On the contrary, the inner self realises the fact the evanescent nature of feminine beauty. Overall the poem is a melancholy and bitter one that exemplifies the tension between inner and outer selves, as well as indicates preternaturally feminine problem of old age and loss of beauty.