Shelby’s Poetry Seminar
Mirror
By: Sylvia Plath
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 --
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 part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
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.
POET’S BACKGROUND:
Sylvia Plath, an American poet, novelist and short story writer, is recognized for advancing the genre of confessional poetry, which emphasizes intimate and sometimes unflattering information about details of a poet's personal life. In regards to Plath’s personal life, her father died when she was eight years old and this subject appears in her poetry. Five months after Plath and her husband (Ted Hughes) separated, Plath committed suicide at the age of thirty by putting her head in an oven and inhaling carbon monoxide. She sealed the kitchen with wet towels to protect her two sleeping children in another room.
THESIS:
Plath’s use of characterization, imagery and lyric quality express her life through an objective perspective.
QUESTIONS:
1. Why do you think Plath described the opposite wall to the mirror as pink and speckled?
2. Who could the woman be that is mentioned in the second stanza of the poem?
3. In the very last line of Plath’s poem when she talks about a "terrible fish", what does the fish represent?
4. How does Plath’s poem relate to occurrences in her life? Comment on how most people aside from the poet can relate to the meaning of the poem.
5. Why do you think that the poem refers to candles and the moon as "liars"?
6. What do you think the greater meaning of the poem is, beyond a mirror’s simple purpose of reflection?
Shelby! Awesome job! There was no reason to be nervous! :)
ReplyDeleteA very complicated poem indeed but it definitely drew up some conversation.
I really liked this poem. I myself would have been scared to do it. This poem leaves me speechless. I really enjoyed it thought. i must agree that it is a very difficult poem. but you did an amazing job (y) :)
ReplyDeleteGreat job on your presentation. I thought it was about a young girl dreaming about how she looks when she was old, but I agree with what the class said about the poem on Friday. At first I thought it was talking about her and her husband breaking up, but I was wrong . I don't say much during these presentations but the idea of the poem will come to my head , not including what the class said. Most of the times I get the meaning of the poem wrong.
ReplyDeleteWell Jason, I think you're correct when you suggests that the poem mat be about "a young girl dreaming about how she looks when she [gets] old" if by young girl you mean Plath herself. Even though the poem is written from the mirror's point of view, it still manages to capture the process of aging, just from the mirror's vantage point.
ReplyDelete3. In the very last line of Plath’s poem when she talks about a "terrible fish", what does the fish represent?
ReplyDeleteI think that the "terrible fish" represents death. Each day she looks in the mirror, she sees herself looking older and older. With old age comes death, and she sees it looming in the future. The fish is used to represent it because if you saw a "terrible fish" in the distance, you would worry that you won't be able to escape it.