Sylvia Plath's "Mirror," shows a truly thoughtful look into the different sights and feelings a mirror would have if it were a live conscious being, unable to lie. By showing the thoughts and emotions that a mirror would emit, Plath makes you look inward towards how you present yourself not only to your mirror but also to yourself. This is an eye-opening poem because of its truthful descriptions of the relationship between the inner feelings of people and how their outward appearances that they portray of themselves affect them in and out of the public realm. Examples of this are put throughout the poem "Mirror," and can be found in just about every line of the poem. In the beginning of "Mirror," the mirror states that it has no preconceptions and whatever it sees it takes in automatically, meaning that it's unbiased in every way. It is not a vessel to be cruel, but to only to be truthful and like that of an "eye of a little god." By saying this, Plath is telling the reader that a mirror, although it can be thought of as mocking and scornful, is nothing but a mirror image. This shows us that the only discrepancy that we see in a mirror is not made by the mirror, but is created by our own psyche, self-conscience, and self-perceptions. All a mirror is, is a projection of what we think and feel about ourselves, may it be an image that comes from another's perceptions of us or not...
Baldwin states that "mirrors can only lie," because they only reflect the surface of people instead of revealing the deep truth.
In her poem entitled “The Poet with His Face in His Hands,” Mary Oliver utilizes the voice of her work’s speaker to dismiss and belittle those poets who focus on their own misery in their writings. Although the poem models itself a scolding, Oliver wrote the work as a poem with the purpose of delivering an argument against the usage of depressing, personal subject matters for poetry. Oliver’s intention is to dissuade her fellow poets from promoting misery and personal mistakes in their works, and she accomplishes this task through her speaker’s diction and tone, the imagery, setting, and mood created within the content of the poem itself, and the incorporation of such persuasive structures as enjambment and juxtaposition to bolster the poem’s
Mirror: a live entity. The movie shows that the mirror is alive and covered with gold draped. The portrayal of unsecure feelings of the Queen could be the identity of the mirror. It is because only the Queen can see the mirror alive. It shows the progress of the Queen and her fate in the story.
"About." Personal Blog, n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2015. [When finding an explanation for the similarities between the writers, it is important to play close attention to biographies. In case the psychoeconomic factors that Ruonco describes are true, then biography constitutes most of the development of the Sylvia Plath affliction. Moreover, the biography provides an insight into the views of the author for a better and more accurate understanding of her poetry. Furthermore, it is imperative to use her auto-statement since she referres to her "muse" as something out of her control which can be traced to Kaufman's
The first symptom of the mirror is seeing the reaper. The doomed victims often doubt their vision as an anomaly. In Spangler’s case, he thought it was only friction tape, and the high schooler only saw a black splotch. Second, victims feel sick and realise that what they saw was, in fact, a cloaked man standing directly behind them. Lastly, when they cannot bare it any longer, doomed victims rush out of the room. This is, however not the only way the mirror has tormented people. Carlin alludes that until it was moved downstairs, many of the museum visitors would act strangely around it. One person, the sister of the high school victim, even tried to break the mirror. Carlin says, “There had been others -- harsh words, wild statements -- but this was an attempt to actually destroy the mirror. The woman, a Miss Sandra Bates, came in with a rock in her pocket. Fortunately her aim was bad and she only cracked a corner of the case. The mirror was unharmed” (King). The delver mirror has a very supernatural description. It is one of the few that has survived throughout the years and, even those intent on destroying it seem to miss. It torments everyone around it by making them say strange and harsh
"Sylvia Plath poem written two weeks before she died reveals 'disturbed' state of mind." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 30 Apr. 2013. Web. 1 June 2014.
Often times we look through people and not truly at them. Sylvia Plath was one person who was looked through a lot when she desperately wanted to be noticed. As a striving poet and author in a time period where women were not expected to perform such tasks Sylvia struggled to keep it all together. Although she had her high points, like we all do, it remains apparent that she was battling with a deep inner conflict. Sylvia brings her emotional burden to life in her first novel The Bell Jar. Feminism, communism and a suicide attempt are all intertwined in this biography. The life of a not only a tortured poet but a struggling mother is obvious throughout her work. In order to grasp the lasting impression of Sylvia Plath, we have to understand where she comes from, how the critics and the people of her time viewed her, and the impact she left for the rest us.
Plath’s works were known for their extremely feminist and suicidal themes. Plath wrote about whatever came to her mind and used writing as a way to express her feelings. Plath is credited with furthering the genre of confessional poetry. Plath was also the first poet to receive the Pulitzer Prize after death. Although Plath had taken her life, her legacy still lives on in many ways.
Overall, the imagery that Plath creates is framed by her diction and is used to convey her emotions toward all relationships and probably even her own marriage to Ted Hughes, who had rude, disorderly habits. Even the structure of the poem is strict in appearance as each stanza ends with a period and consists of exactly six lines. In addition, the persona of the poem is very detached and realistic, so much that it is hard to distinguish between her and Plath, herself. However, Plath insinuates that the woman actually wants love deep down, but finds the complexity and unpredictability of love to be frightening. As a result, she settles for solitude as a defense against her underlying fear.
...lmsheimer, Lonna M. "Sylvia Plath." American Writers. Ed. Leonard Unger, A. Walton. Litz, Molly Weigel, and Jay Parini. Supplement 1 Part 2. New York: Scribner, 1974. 526-49. Print.
In my project #3, the poetic themes I engaged in my series of using metaphor is to reflect the real identity of a person by the mirror. I construct this relationship visually by photoshopped two images together and have the mirror on one of the images shows the different reflection of the real world. This time, I choose only to reflect on the identity of the model, which is myself, to show my real thoughts in my mind when I am doing something. There is no more juxtaposition and poetic reflection of things in the final version, such as the camera and gun, cat and lion, etc.
The author shows her as a self-portrayed person with the ability to show the true side of a person not knowing what life she really wants. Living in two worlds knowing that each is a life you want but too far to grasp. Edna loves too deep in the story she has a friend who is not liked and is different from the rest but shows what’s a true friend. Looking in the mirror gives you a reflection of who you are what type of person does Enda see.
To her, the child’s eye is the storage of beauty, and he wish is to be at the same place as beauty. Beauty and happiness is compared to childhood mother’s inability to do much for her child. This gives us the aspect of how she lacked happiness in her life and also lacked to see any positive outcomes. This was one of the last poems that Plath wrote before her death.