Mirror written by Sylvia Plath, Made by Satyam.

1. Mirror
Sylvia Plath
Carol Wolff

2. Sylvia’s Life

3. Her Life
• Sylvia was born on October
27, 1932 in Newton,
Massachusetts.
• She married Hughes on
June 16, 1956

5. Her Life
• Sylvia and Ted had two
children Frieda and Nicholas
(1960, 1962)
• 1962 She learned of Ted’s
infidelity and they
separated.
• Committed suicide on
February 11, 1963.

6. Mirror
1st Stanza
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you 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 a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

7. 2nd Stanza
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.

8. Writing Style
• Written in first
person
• Use of simple
sentences
• Very few adjectives
due to use of
metaphors
• Use of
Personification

9. Analysis
Stanza I Addressed by an inanimate
object
– Sets out to define itself and
its function
– Has no preconceptions
because it is without
memory or ability to reason.
– It is omnivorous – swallows
everything it confronts
without making judgments
that might blur, mist, or
distort.

10. It is god-like in its
objectivity and
incapability of
emotional response.
Most of the time it
meditates on the
opposite wall, faithfully
reproducing its colors
and design until
darkness intrudes or
intervenes

11. Analysis
Stanza II
The mirror becomes a perfectly
reflecting lake, unruffled by any
disturbance
A Woman bends over the lake
like the mythical Narcissus.
– No matter how deeply she
searches, she sees only her
actuality or surface truth.
– Unlike Narcissus, the
speaker cannot fall in love
with what she sees.

12. • The candles and moon to which the
woman turns are liars capable of lending
untruthful shadows and romantic
highlights – unlike the lake
surface/mirror, which renders only
faithful images.

13. Unhappy by what she
sees, she weeps and
wrings her hands.
– The youth and
beauty once
reflected during
her morning visits
are drowned in the
metaphorical
depths of the lake.
– What slowly
emerges from
those depths is the
terrifying fact that
she is aging.

14. NNaarrcciissssuuss ((mmyytthhoollooggyy)
In the various stories he
is exceptionally cruel, in
that he disdains those
who love him. As divine
punishment he falls in
love with a reflection in
a pool, not realizing it
was his own, and
perishes there, not
being able to leave the
beauty of his own
reflection.

15. SSeellff--
cceenntteerreeddnneessss
• The mythical Narcissus
alienated himself not
only from other people
but from the
nonhuman beings and
presences of the
natural world.
• Gazing into a beautiful
pond he saw merely his
personal reflection and
absolutely nothing of
nature.

16. Without any intention of doing so, the mythical
Narcissus provides each of us with a warning. His
eternal self-obsession cautions us against such
self-centeredness.
We live in a culture that rewards and encourages
such selfishness. Focus on self-interest is
encouraged. Every commercial is a chance to buy
a new mirror – an offer of some new way to serve
ourselves. As pilgrims passing through this world,
we will walk through the land of Narcissus.
We have the chance to be renegades. The mirrors
we use are held to our souls – not to our faces.
Carol Wolff

17. Ponder this Quotation
(Ovid 464)
• “Am I the lover or
beloved? Then why make
love?
Since I am what I long for,
then my riches are so great
they make me poor.”
• Publius Ovidius Naso
• (20 March 43 BCE – 17 or 18 CE), known
as Ovid