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    Mirror Poem Final

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    The poem "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath uses personification and diction to argue that humans critique their own appearances based on their reflections in mirrors, often to their own detriment. The mirror is personified as being objective and truthful without bias or judgement. However, people interpret the mirror's reflection as a judgement and revere it as they would a god. This leads them to drown their former selves and give rise to distorted self-perceptions, becoming their own downfall through how they internalize the mirror's reflection.

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    Mirror Poem Final

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    65 views4 pages
    The poem "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath uses personification and diction to argue that humans critique their own appearances based on their reflections in mirrors, often to their own detriment. The mirror is personified as being objective and truthful without bias or judgement. However, people interpret the mirror's reflection as a judgement and revere it as they would a god. This leads them to drown their former selves and give rise to distorted self-perceptions, becoming their own downfall through how they internalize the mirror's reflection.

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    mirror poem final

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    The poem "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath uses personification and diction to argue that humans critique their own appearances based on their reflections in mirrors, often to their own detriment. The mirror is personified as being objective and truthful without bias or judgement. However, people interpret the mirror's reflection as a judgement and revere it as they would a god. This leads them to drown their former selves and give rise to distorted self-perceptions, becoming their own downfall through how they internalize the mirror's reflection.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    65 views4 pages

    Mirror Poem Final

    Uploaded by

    api-531186770
    The poem "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath uses personification and diction to argue that humans critique their own appearances based on their reflections in mirrors, often to their own detriment. The mirror is personified as being objective and truthful without bias or judgement. However, people interpret the mirror's reflection as a judgement and revere it as they would a god. This leads them to drown their former selves and give rise to distorted self-perceptions, becoming their own downfall through how they internalize the mirror's reflection.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 4

    Lu 1

    Samantha Lu

    White

    20 Nov 2020

    AP Literature and Composition

    Death by Glass

    Through personification and diction, the poem “Mirror” by Sylvia Plath argues that

    humans take the objective image in mirrors and critique their appearances, ultimately being their

    own downfall because of how they portray themselves.

    The personification of the mirror emphasizes the mirror’s objectivity, as well as the

    decision man can make when looking at a mirror. In the first line, the speaker personifies the

    mirror as “exact, with “no preconceptions”, and in the fourth line as “not cruel, only truthful”.

    Simply put, the mirror is not biased. Literally, it is a reflection, but this personification is meant

    to showcase that it is simply going to take in what it sees and do nothing more. Being exact, it

    precisely shows the reflection with no distortion. Having no preconceptions, there is no

    judgement tied into what it portrays. It does not know what it will reflect beforehand, which

    means it cannot enact any form of prejudice. This lack of preconception ties into its truthful

    nature, because it cannot form judgement to cast upon anyone who looks into the mirror. The

    personification ultimately emphasizes that the mirror will never be anything more than a

    reflection. However, there is a minor shift to imply the idea that man can interpret the mirror’s

    reflection differently. In the fifth line, the speaker states “The eye of a little god,”, which goes to

    imply that mirrors are more than just a simple reflection. The speaker describes itself as a god to

    imply the great deal of power it can possess, as well as imply its potential to enact judgement as

    a god would. Additionally, a god is not without its followers. People who look at the mirror
    Lu 2

    revere it with the utmost respect and take its reflection to heart, as one would with the word of a

    god. However, it contrasts the word “god” and presents itself as “little” to stress that it is also

    still a mirror. Man ascribes meaning to it by treating the reflection the same as we would a god’s

    judgement, despite the mirror having little impact in actuality. Ultimately, whoever looks into the

    mirror decides the mirror’s “judgement” upon themselves. They can take the mirror’s reflection

    to be the aforementioned “exact” and “truthful” display of themselves, or they can let the mirror

    dictate and place judgment upon their character by treating the mirror as that “little god”. The

    second stanza goes on to exacerbate the second personification using diction to demonstrate how

    man becomes their own downfall.

    The speaker then uses the words “drowned” and “terrible” to reflect the nature of man

    and how they interact with mirrors. When the speaker uses the word “drowned”, that is literally

    defined as one who has died from inhaling water. It is utilized in the context of the woman

    drowning a beautiful young girl, which is strongly implied to be herself, as she gives rise to an

    old woman. However, the connotation behind drowning is often associated with a painful death

    alongside murder, such as someone drowning a victim. By carrying these strong connotations,

    the speaker demonstrates that the woman has forcibly pushed down the beautiful young girl that

    she once was to the point of no return, hence the connotation of murder. She drowned her former

    self every time she looked into the pond’s reflection because she disliked how the girl (herself)

    looked. Through the mirror’s reflection, the woman was ultimately her own downfall. Then, the

    speaker uses the word “terrible” in the context of the old woman rising like a “terrible fish”. The

    dictionary meaning of terrible is “notably unattractive or objectionable” (Merriam Webster). In

    this context, “terrible” is meant to give the connotation that this woman is unwanted and a

    tragedy, and that something has gone horribly wrong. In this case, the old woman that has risen
    Lu 3

    from the pond is the product of the woman manifesting that image of herself. The tragedy of the

    old woman rising showcases that the trade for the beautiful young woman and this old woman is

    a sorrowful event, something to be mourned. She views herself as this “terrible” old woman,

    which indicates her warped perception of herself that was exacerbated every time she looked into

    the pond’s reflection. Both instances indicate that the woman was her own worst enemy, as she

    was the one who drowned the beautiful young girl and gave rise to the terrible old woman, both

    of which are perceptions of herself. She dictated how the mirror would reflect into her, and

    allowed the lake’s reflection to determine who she was as a person.

    Overall, the lesson learned here is that mirrors are ultimately unbiased and will always be

    a simple reflection. However, man often interprets it to be all seeing and determinant of who they

    are. Man cannot judge themselves based on what the mirror decides to reflect back onto them,

    not to the extent where they value only the superficiality of their looks and nothing else. In

    becoming absorbed in the supposed judgement of the mirror’s reflection, man can ridicule and

    destroy themselves over it.


    Lu 4

    Work Cited

    "terrible." ​Merriam-Webster.com​. Merriam-Webster, 2020. Accessed 15 Nov 2020.

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