09/25/2025
THE GREAT SYLVIA PLATH'S "MIRROR":
In this poem, a mirror describes its existence and its owner, who grows older as the mirror watches.
The mirror first describes itself as “silver and exact.” It forms no judgments, instead merely swallowing what it sees and reflecting that image back without any alteration. The mirror is not cruel, “only truthful.” It considers itself a four-cornered eye of a god, which sees everything for what it is.
Most of the time, the mirror looks across the empty room and meditates on the pink speckled wall across from it. It has looked at that wall for so long that it describes the wall as “part of my heart.” The image of the wall is interrupted only by people who enter to look at themselves and the darkness that comes with night.
The mirror imagines itself as a lake. A woman looks into it, trying to discern who she really is by gazing at her reflection. Sometimes, the woman prefers to look at herself in candlelight or moonlight, but these are “liars” because they mask her true appearance. Only the mirror (existing here as lake) gives her a faithful representation of herself.
Because of this honesty, the woman cries and wrings her hands. Nevertheless, she cannot refrain from visiting the mirror over and over again, every morning. Over the years, the woman has “drowned a young girl” in the mirror, and now sees in her reflection an old woman growing older by the day. This old woman rises toward her out of the mirror like “a terrible fish.”
In this short but beloved poem, the narrator is a wall mirror in a woman's bedroom. Thhe speakerĺthe subjects are time and appearance. The woman struggles with the loss of her beauty, admitting each day that she is growing older. Though the woman occasionally deludes herself with the flattering "liars" candlelight and moonlight, she continually returns to the mirror for the truth.
The woman needs the mirror to provide her with an objective, unadulterated reflection of self, even though it is often discomfiting, causing her "tears and an agitation of hands." The mirror is well aware of how important it is to the woman, which evokes the Greek myth of Narcissus, in which a young man grows so transfixed with his own reflection that he dies.
Some critics have speculated that the woman is vexed by more than her changing physical appearance. They posit that the woman is observing her mind, her soul, and her psyche, stripped of any guile or obfuscation. By seeing her true self, she becomes aware of the distinction between her exterior and interior lives. In other words, she might be meditating on the distinction between a "false" outer self of appearance, and a "true" inner self.
Overall, "Mirror" is a melancholy and even bitter poem that exemplifies the tensions between inner and outer selves, as well as indicates the preternaturally feminine "problem" of aging and losing one's beauty.
