Analysis Of The Fight For Self Acceptance By Sylvia Plath

The Fight For Self Acceptance Sylvia Plath was an American poet that was born on October 27, 1932, in Boston Massachusetts. Plath lost her father at an early age. She was considered to be a phenomenal and troubled poet. At a young Plath won numerous amounts of academic awards. After she took an interest in writing, she obtained a scholarship to Smith College in 1950. Plath living in the 1950s was afflicted with the idea she had to get married, have children, as well as obtaining a career. During her college career, she suffered from major depression. In the summer of 1953 she attempted to kill herself by taking sleeping pills. She was placed in a mental health facility where she was treated with electroconvulsive shock treatments (Wagner-

Personification is when human qualities are given to animals, objects or ideas (Literary Devices). For example, in her first stanza she says “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” (Plath 7-9). She is giving human characteristics to the mirror. Plath is bestowing feelings to the mirror plus a heart. In this quote she is talking about how everyday a woman comes and goes looking at herself in the mirror. She has spent so much time in front of the mirror, that the mirror believes that the women is part of her heart. Also it shows how judgmental the mirror is about the women, “It is pink, with speckles”, she is talking about her skin tone and her freckles. The mirror, ideally represents the author where it shows the battle of self acceptance with who she is. It also uses repetition to explain how time is going by when she says “Faces and darkness separate us over and over” (Plath 9). Another major use of figurative language that she uses is a simile. A simile is the correlation of one thing with another

The “candle”, the “moon” and the “lake” have a way deeper meaning in this quote. The candle and the moon represent a source of light. The light that they obtain is very soft and shallow. In the poem they both represent a lie, because the light that they reflect on one is really soft. It just provides one with shadows of what they look like, it does not show their full features. Also the lake depicts a distorted reflection of one, which is also seen as a lie. While the mirror represents the truth that is why Plyth calls the “candle”, the “moon”and the “lake” liars. The mirror portrays one like the way they are, it does not hide ones true characteristics. As William Freedman points out in his poetry review of the, “Mirror”, “She is the woman as male-defined ideal..... the woman... who "turns to those liars, the candles or the moon" for confirmation of the man-pleasing myth of perpetual youth, docility, and sexual allure” (Freedman 152). Freedman believes the women turns to those liars (e.g the candle and the moon) to find acceptance within herself; even though they do not portray the true her. It is evident that Sylvia Plath was struggling with self acceptance, throughout her life she was trying to find who she was. She portrays these struggles within her poem as one can see. She believes that in search of self acceptance the mirror is the only reliable source. This leads back to the theme of