Analysis Of `` Mirror `` By Sylvia Plath

The writer compares his life to water on Rouge River that is heading towards dead end with unknown future. “And my reflection is dominated by water Coming to impasse, the teeter-totter Of decision” from the poem shows the seriousness and thought provoking idea i.e. contemplation probably related to meaning of life and what lies ahead. Moreover, “And plunging in we find a serene cavernous strength, And pressed to run its darkness at full length, We find our all”, reflects tone of believing in ourselves and the best we have in us. This means no matter the situation we can bring the best of us that is life. Tone of the poem helps writer to make the poem more appealing to the readers. It aids the poet to express his feeling more effectively and

“Breaking the surface, shatter an old silence” evokes a sense of commotion as if everything was so silent you could hear a pin drop and all of a sudden there was excitement. This shows that the previous poems she read mean nothing close to what the poems she is reading now. This description provides a distinction between the previous poem she read and this current one. “The lake flowed out again, the swans, the darkening sky”(32-33) shows that there is stuff happening compared to the silence before. The darkening sky causes the girl to lose her doubts further showing how powerful this rush is. The figurative language of describing the swans as having question mark necks shows that the girl may be having allusions as a side effect of how much she is being impacted by the poem. The rush she feels from how interested she is in in poems causes her to lose her morals and her mind for a few moments. The girl is looking at the swans and is thinking about stealing the book “my breath came quickly, thinking it over- I had no money, no one was looking”(39-40). The question mark necks show how truly she was uncertain on what to

After reading “what the mirror said”, some readers may say that this poem was not written to embrace the woman’s beauty but to explain that she is confusing and hectic. A reader with this point of view would

Stereotypes in Plath ‘The Applicant’ ‘The applicant’ by Sylvia Plath is a poem that describes the life of an applicant who has high expectations from the interviewer. This poem literally means how the people from the 1950s were stereotypical about the lifestyle of others and how they could objectify people based on their gender by asking “First, are you our sort of person?” Plath emphasizes how they have to accept everything and how they are treated as materials rather than human beings. Plath uses diction to underline the idea of stereotypes. For example, she uses the words “bring teacups” to describe how the wife acts as a servant, serving her husband for whatever he desires.

These three lines are perfect examples of the imagery within the poem because they contain an image of a river with its small peeks and waves trembling and glistening in the afternoon sun. All the while it equates the natural beauty of the river to the beauty that the young man sees in the youthful maiden.

All three poems generally convey Sylvia Plath’s speaker’s emotions and feelings towards the people surrounding them and several inevitabilities such as old age. In “Mirror” the poem, although it is written in the first person, is written as if she is a neutral object observing another person. The speaker is the mirror observing someone else’s emotions towards the mirror, “she rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands,” this is Plath’s reflection on old age and how women are afraid of the future as it is often associated with imperfection and the unknown. The speaker is afraid of the future because she doesn’t know what will happen as her beauty will eventually fade and she with each day she is slowly approaching death. This can be linked to “The Arrival of The Bee Box.”

In the poem “Stars Over the Dordogne” by Sylvia Plath, the author illustrates a message by using different techniques. The message slowly develops as the readers go throughout the piece, however all the techniques are effective and leave an impact on the audience. Moreover, it causes the audience to have different views throughout the piece. The message in this poem is about how everyone has a different perspective on the world. The author shows this, by using imagery, personification, and shift to develop a message.

mirror. Who are almost getting in the way so to speak of its life and

           In the second part of Atwood's poem, the speaker describes the undeniable feelings that come from being a separate entity apart from her lover. Even as a mirror, there is more to her than there seems. As a woman hiding behind the metaphor of a mirror, the speaker seems to be telling her lover that the facets of her personality and physical appearance should not go unnoticed in the shadows of the way she serves to reflect. She tells her lover, "There is more than this dead blue / oblong eye turned outwards to you," (lines 18-19). In the same stanza, she describes the other parts of the mirror: the frame and its intricacies that do not reflect the

Subsequently Plath is starting to acknowledge this motivation through gazing toward the rook; thusly she gazes upward past the fledgling to see something profound. This may likewise talk about her craving for flawlessness – Plath's mom ingrained such elevated expectations throughout her life that Plath was never sure about any of her work.'… it could happen' Plath starts to acknowledge that the wonder could happen – it could happen even in the dull scene that encompasses her. Plath experienced childhood in Boston, on the east drift close to the ocean. The ocean has enormous impact in her graceful symbolism and it has pushed itself into Plath's brain in stanza However it is a dull picture, a picture that fits the psyche now in the sonnet (sadness and

I chose this poem because it explains how people think every day. People believe that they have to try and be perfect everyday in order for people to not judge them. Everybody tries to be unique and impress others in some way. I think this poem makes the claim that people should focus on being happy instead of trying to be perfect. It states that if you change the person that you are then your priority will not be happiness which is the most important thing a person should have. The last line of the poem says, "Who looks back in your reflection?", to me this means that you should just be yourself because everybody is focusing on themselves making sure they are flawless that they most likely are not even paying attention to each flaw that you

Lastly, Plath employs the negative effect of the progression of aging over a period of time. The poet uses connotations to show the maturity of the woman. The mirror describes the wall it reflects as: “It is pink, with speckles” (7). When picturing the color pink, people associate it with femininity, girl, innocence, and sensitivity. For example, during baby showers, people color coordinate everything with colors that are associated with the baby that is going to be born. If the baby is going to be a boy, then they will decorate and color coordinate everything to be the color blue but if the baby is going to be a girl, then they will decorate and color coordinate everything to be the color pink. The use of the color “pink” describes how young

All throughout this literary work there was a complete use of visual imagery to characterize the young boy and girl presented in the poem. The use of imagery with the son was to describe the workout he does in order to achieve his desire look. The imagery used with the daughter was to illustrate and exemplify how she made a continuous effort, a meticulous beauty routine to look better. However, no matter what they do, neither the daughter nor the son were happy with how they look. No matter the gender, everybody struggle to look better. Not always we like what we see at the mirror. Do you think frowning at the mirror

Sylvia Plath’s poem “Mirror” is about a woman who gets older as the mirror watches her. At first, the mirror is “silver and exact” (1). The mirror does not judge; however, it swallows what it sees and reflects that image back (2). The mirror is also “not cruel, only truthful” (4), and considers itself a four-cornered eye of a god (5). Therefore, the mirror sees everything for what it is, and does not lie. The mirror looks across the empty room most of the time (6) and meditates on the pink speckled wall across from it (7). The mirror is attached to the wall, and has looked at that wall for so long, that the wall is thought to be “part of my heart” (8). The darkness in the room and the people who consider the mirror are the faces and darkness that separate the woman and the mirror (9). In the next stanza, the mirror is now portraying itself as a lake (10). A woman is looking into the lake (10), and she is

Stylistic Structure plays a major role through the whole poem of “Mirror”. The first stanza can be split into two different views, the first being what the onlooker sees in the mirror and the second being what the mirror sees. This structure allows the reader to understand the pain of seeing what is reflected in the mirror and how the mirror feels about being the individual who is being reflected. “I am not cruel, only truthful-“(4) describes how the onlooker views the mirror and describes the reaction the looker gives when they see what is being reflected. The reflection leads to hurt when the individual realizes that what they see is not what is being reflected. This stylistic structure can also be seen in the second stanza which refers to the lake as a reflector instead of the