Mirror by Sylvia Plath, Analysis

In the metrical composition Mirror by Sylvia Plath, there is a continuing theme of change. In the beginning the changes are simple, alike(p) the acts of day turning to night, merely at the check we positiveise the life changes of a woman in particular. by dint of the use of metaphor and personification in the numbers, Plath creates images of water, reflections, and colors as having piece characteristics to emphasize the strong theme of change passim the verse. From the beginning of the poem, we see that it revolves around water. We insure out that the reverberate is unmisted and swallows everything.We see that by the end of the poem, a girl is drowning and a fish is rising to take over her. In the poem water is both a reflecting surface and an actual lake. So, water, in this poem, is both clear and mysterious. In caper 2 the intelligence service swallow is apply as a metaphor for reflecting. The word makes us think of water, which can itself swallow things, taking th em beneath its surface. In lines 10-11 we find out that the reverberate is a lake, shifting from the silver of a mirror to the silver of clear water. After that we see that a woman is inquisitive the reaches of the water for who she really is.Later on in line 14, the weeping of the woman are another form of water, and she is strong-armly interacting with the water of the lake by stirring it up in her hands. In lines 17-18 the young girl is drowning, and the doddery woman is rising. It seems most likely that the water is a metaphor for time, or aging. (Shmoop Editorial Team) From silver to pink to moonlight, this poem uses colors and light to erupt the reader images as they read roughly a mirror. In line 1 the color outflows the major clue that the speaker is not a person, but a personified mirror.Since this is the first line, we think of the color silver throughout the poem whenever we think of the mirror. In lines 7-8 the mirror is silver, but now we nurture the image of th e pink wall, that the mirror most often reflects. Later in line 8, we find out that this speckled pink wall is like part of the mirrors heart, which leads us to think of the color red. In line 9 we get our first glimpse of darkness, which separates the mirror from the pink wall. The mirror similarly mentions that faces play a part in this separation.Later in the poem we hear that, the candles and the moon are liars, and that the light that they provide is false. The mirrors declaration personifies the candles and the moons, large them human qualities, like the ability to lie. (Shmoop Editorial Team) In a poem just about a mirror, we can expect a lot of reflections. Plath plainly uses the word reflect once, though. Instead of just repeating this word over again and again, she uses personification and metaphor to get her point across. The emphasis on reflections in this poem shows the importance of appearance to the woman in the poem.Line 2 is also an example of personification b ecause mirrors dont see or swallow anything but Plaths poem makes this character so believable that we defecate to remind ourselves that mirrors dont have eyes or mouths. In line 6 the metaphor is that the mirror is reflecting the opposite wall, not meditating on it and the personification is that mirrors dont meditate, but people do. In lines 7-8 we have another example of personification used to create a metaphor for reflection because mirrors dont see and they dont look.In line 11 the mirror is a lake, and a woman is searching its amnionic fluid to learn something about herself. The woman is treating her reflection in the water as if it could reveal something about herself, and not just her appearance. (Shmoop Editorial Team) In line 13 Plath used the word reflect but not without some personification. The mirror is providing an true reflection, as if it takes pride in what it does, or as if it has some the true to this woman that is constantly looking at herself.In lines 18-19 we see reflections physical power however this power is only a figurative. There is a young girl and a figurative old woman in the waters of the lake. This line takes reflections from being about present appearances and makes them about erstwhile(prenominal) and future appearances, all through the metaphor of drowning and rising in the waters of the lake. By this evidence through the poem in its entirety, the theme distinctly stands out in the poem and the use of metaphor and personification give abundant evidence that the poem is directed toward a theme of change.