Sylvia Plath was born in 1932 in Massachusetts. She married Ted Hughes in 1956 and they had two children together. In 1962, she learned of Ted's infidelity and they separated. Struggling with this, Plath committed suicide in 1963. The poem "Mirror" is about a mirror addressing itself as an objective reflector of reality without judgment. It reflects the colors on the opposite wall until darkness. A woman bends over the mirror as if it were a lake, searching deeply but only seeing her actual self. Unhappy with her aging reflection, she weeps as the youth she once saw has drowned in the mirror's depths.

1. Mirror
Sylvia Plath
MRINAL DWIVEDI

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

4. Sylvia 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.

5. Summary
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.

6. 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

7. Summary
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.

8. • 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.

9. 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.