Mirror by Sylvia Plath, Summary & Analysis

A brief analysis of Sylvia Plath's poem Mirror

Mirror reflecting the opposite pink wall

The Mirror is a Post Modern world poem written by America born poet and novelist Sylvia Plath in 1961 and she is known for her confessional style work. The poem was published posthumously in "Crossing the Water" in 1971. It was written shortly after the birth of Plath's first child, Nicholas. The Mirror represents Plath's difficult life and the poem, mind of a glass - sharp, clear and unforgettable and would be compelling no matter who wrote it. The poem is written from a viewpoint of a mirror that is personified over here. Though the mirror is a materialistic and non-living thing, the personification of the very object gives us the idea of a self-confession of the poet who tries to speak her own words through the lifeless mirror. The imposition of a persona on the mirror has given us a sight of Plath's own fears of ageing with time and the fear of slowly approaching death, which is inevitable in life.

The poem opens with the description of the complexion of the mirror which is silver in colour. The word "silver" and "Sylvia" sounds little-bit similar to a reader, maybe symbolically depicting the white complexion of the poet herself. The Mirror is written in the first-person voice of a silver mirror superficially, but deep inside it is the voice of Sylvia's own. Here, the mirror insists that it depicts the truth objectively. It is neutral in its job, i.e. precisely reflects the object which stands in front of it. It has no predetermined notion for the object in front of it and is uncoloured by feelings. Whenever it sees an object, it reflects instantly on its silver screen in an unbiased manner. The word "swallow" is a metaphor for reflecting everything without any distortion. It also appears hungry to the reader and always wants to reflect something on its surface. The mirror looks at everything with extreme stoicism - "unmisted by love or dislike"- shows no emotion to anybody. It never hides any ugliness in the physical appearance of a being; the mirror, here, is not meant harsh to anybody but simply honest and 100% dedicated to its work: "I am not cruel, only truthful". The dash between the fourth and fifth lines seems like a comment from the mirror about its job role. The metaphor "the eye of a little god" presents the ability of the mirror to see and evaluate everything and it can not be dishonest even if any unpleasant object is standing in front of it like treatment received by everybody from the omnipotent gods in general because "god" in the poem is written in small letter. Here mirror also describes its shape, which is "four-cornered"- square or rectangular, which is a very common shape of a full-size mirror. Opposite to a pink wall, the mirror is hanging from and it waits patiently for an object to come in front of it. As there is no other moving object in between them most of the time, so the pink wall is only visible in the mirror. The pink wall is also not perfect but "with speckle" or patches of inconsistent colour- a symbolic representation of the flaws in every object and human being. It is the constant companion of the lonely mirror which sometimes mistakes the wall as the part of its own heart. But the relation between the mirror and the pink wall breaks sometimes when some "faces and darkness separate" them "over and over", i.e. the wall goes in and out of focus as people passes or approaches to see their faces and darkness of night or maybe dark shadow falls on it. The colour pink on the opposite wall suggests that it must be a room of a woman or female because pink colour is traditionally associated with women. The word "meditation" indicates the passion of the mirror for its work. The sudden break in relationship or separation from its soul ["heart"] reminds us of the untimely break in the relationship of Sylvia Plath with her husband, British poet Ted Hughes in 1963, two years later of writing this poem. Whether in the case of the pink wall and the mirror or the Plath and Huge, the break in a relationship is always very sad.

In the second stanza, the mirror describes itself as a deep lake which a woman tries to fathom to "search" or judge the real capability of the mirror to depict the true beauty of the woman. After knowing the truth the lady turns to the liars like candles and moon which mislead her about her true appearances and when she turned towards them, the mirror again performs its work by precisely depicting the image of the back of the lady. Whether it is the back or the face of an individual, the mirror is as precise and prompt in its work as a machine without prioritizing any specific thing. When the woman who is standing in front of the mirror realizes her real beauty, can not able to hide her tears and her anxiety related to her physical appearance. The male dominant, patriarchal culture during the post World War II time of the 1950s and '60s put an enormous amount of pressure on women to look young and beautiful and at the same time, they have to perform all the duties at home and take care of the children and husband and at the same time hold her beauty to stay relevant on the parameter of patriarchal expectation. That is why the mirror is important to a woman who comes again and again to check the status of her physical appearance. Every morning when the curtains of the window are removed by the woman and sunlight falls on the surface of the mirror, the first thing that the mirror sees is the face of the lady who takes the mirror from the life of darkness to the light of freedom: "each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness". It is similar to the duties and workload she takes every day to run her family as smooth as possibly. Throughout her life, she sees her face in the mirror, from the age of a young girl to an old lady who is on the verge of her life. Day by day mirror sees her getting older with time and losing her physical chirm, from beautiful, shiny and glowing face to the wrinkled skin. She sees her face "day after day" in the mirror and she gradually becomes "a terrible fish" in the poet's words and losing her physical beauty and becoming irrelevant to this harsh patriarchal society. It again gives us the perspective of Plath's own married life which is also broken due to her husband Ted Hughes's attraction for another lady may be due to similar reason which is really unacceptable in today's Modern society where an individual's relevance is measured in terms of her physical beauty and not for her contribution to her family and society in general.