Sylvia Plaths Mirror Essay -- Papers Sylvia Plath Poem Poetry Essays

Sylvia Plath's Mirror Sylvia Plath's "Mirror" offers a unique perspective on the attitudes of aging. "Mirror" displays tremendous insight and objectivity into the natural human behavior of growing older. Plath is able to emphasize the loneliness, hope, despair, and insecurity that awaits us through mankind's incessant addiction with reflection. "Mirror" expresses the problems associated with aging through terse comparisons between reality and desire. Plathe's strength of "Mirror" lies in its ability to establish a solid comparison among appearance and human emotions between the first and second stanzas. At first "Mirror" introduces reflection as a precise and accurate force through utilizing the first person perspective of a mirror: "I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful.." (Plathe lines 1-4) This example can then be viewed symbolically of appearance especially concerning "love or dislike". In that people never hate nor adore their features but merely accept that what they see is what defines them. This faith is reinforced by the quality and type of reflection because it is originating from a mirror which is suppose to be exact, honest, and universal for all. Plathe understanding these principles describes the reflection process by instilling this object with living characteristics such as thought, sight, and a lifestyle: "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 part of my heartà ¢? ¦Faces and darkness separate us over and over." (Pl... ... that not only destroys our reflection but also ones sense of identity, purpose, and confidence. The critical comparisons found in Sylvia Plath's "mirror" portray a distinctive attitude towards aging. Through contrasting the two separate stanzas the messages of desire, reality, individuality, fear, and insecurity are all demonstrated. Once the essence of Plathe's attitude is unlocked in "mirror" the emotion behind the writing is seen as the motivation for a tone that displays intense longing or weariness towards life. This becomes epitomized throughout Plathe's presentation as it utilizes age as a catalyst for the deterioration of the human spirit. Works Cited: Plath, Sylvia. ?Mirror.? The Language of Literature: American Literature. Eds. Arthur N. Applebee et al. Evanston: McDougal Littel, 1997. 252.