Mirror
is a poem by Sylvia Plath that uses a mirror as its speaker. This poem was very
confusing to understand at first because of all of the syntax. After reading it
a second time I began to understand more of the poem. I started to make sense
that a mirror was talking about it speaking the truth. Then I got to the second
stanza and I was lost again. All it started talking about was that now the
mirror was a lake and a child had drowned in it. It reminded me of an Old Spice Commercial.
I do understand the ending
better because it was just symbolizing aging and eventual death, but the part
about a candle and a moon being a lie is still weird to me, but oh well I think
if I read it a couple more times then I will get it eventually. For the time
being though I am going to read some other poetry, and then go back to it. One
concept of the article that makes me wonder is that is the mirror just trying
to trick the person into only seeing the aesthetics and not what is actually
there, and then the lake is suddenly rippling you the truth behind reality,
which is death. Yeah this poem probably
does have some deeper meaning that is not on the surface, just like a mirror or
a lake…
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
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,
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.
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.
-
Sylvia Plath
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