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Vsuresh Posted 11 years ago
Essay & Composition Writing
Theme of the poem Mirror
Please give your comments on the theme of the poem Mirror by Sylvia Plath
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. 5
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, 10
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. 15
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.
Poem Mirror by Sylvia Plath is about the ‘honest’ nature of the mirror. Plath has personified mirror line 1 “I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions” to drive home the fact that mirror shows what comes before it exactly the same.
Line 5 “The eye of a little god, four-cornered.” where Plath compares mirror to God is a strong message to the reader that mirror is as infallible as God, who stands for nothing but truth.
Lines 12 “Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon” and line 13 “I see her back, and reflect it faithfully” tell the reader how another thing ‘lake’ which has also the power to reflect is not as honest as the mirror. While ‘liars’ denotes dishonest nature the lake, ‘faithfully’ denotes the honest quality of the mirror.
Thus, the reader is able to see that the value of honesty is being highlighted almost throughout the poem.
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. 5
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, 10
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. 15
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.
Poem Mirror by Sylvia Plath is about the ‘honest’ nature of the mirror. Plath has personified mirror line 1 “I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions” to drive home the fact that mirror shows what comes before it exactly the same.
Line 5 “The eye of a little god, four-cornered.” where Plath compares mirror to God is a strong message to the reader that mirror is as infallible as God, who stands for nothing but truth.
Lines 12 “Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon” and line 13 “I see her back, and reflect it faithfully” tell the reader how another thing ‘lake’ which has also the power to reflect is not as honest as the mirror. While ‘liars’ denotes dishonest nature the lake, ‘faithfully’ denotes the honest quality of the mirror.
Thus, the reader is able to see that the value of honesty is being highlighted almost throughout the poem.
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