Summary
Summary Mirror in-depth notes - IEB English Home Language Poem
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One of the selected poems for IEB English Home Language. 'Mirror' by Sylvia Plath. Explores the themes and poetic devices of the poem.
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Mirror, Contents
Contents....................................................................................................................................... 2
Summary...................................................................................................................................... 3
Themes......................................................................................................................................... 3
Time, aging & mortality...................................................................................................... 3
Appearance & identity........................................................................................................3
Poetic devices..............................................................................................................................4
Personification................................................................................................................... 4
Consonance.......................................................................................................................5
Assonance......................................................................................................................... 6
Diacope..............................................................................................................................6
Metaphor............................................................................................................................7
Simile................................................................................................................................. 7
Imagery.............................................................................................................................. 8
Allusion.............................................................................................................................. 9
Enjambment.......................................................................................................................9
FORM.......................................................................................................................................... 10
METER........................................................................................................................................ 10
RHYME SCHEME........................................................................................................................11
Class notes.................................................................................................................................11
, Summary
● Told from mirror’s perspective
● Mirror insists it has no predemtermined notions or assumptions
● Mirror is not harsh, but simply honest
Themes
Time, aging & mortality
● Poem describes personified mirror looking on as the woman’s youth fades
● The woman resents getting older & losing her beauty & youth
- 2 important social currencies for women living in a male-dominated society
● Illustrates the anguish of aging
- Woman confronts her mortality in the mirror each morning
● Stanza 1 illustracts mirror’s objectivity
- Metaphor: Like a god, mirror sees things exactly as they are
● Does not exist to flatter or insult, but only reflect appearances truthfully
● Mirror is “important” to the woman, perhaps because women in particular are so
often expected to conform to rigid standards of beauty & youth
- The parts of the woman that patriarchal society deems most valuable are also
the parts of her that have a time stamp; they are quickly fading
● “Like a terrible fish”: woman’s reflection is disconcerting - the aging process has
made her unrecognisable
● Highlights the horror & difficulty of confronting aging and - because ahing
inevitably lead to death - the idea of mortality
Appearance & identity
● About woman who sees herself in the mirror
● Woman is preoccupied w her reflection, hoping to find in it “what she really is”
● Even though the mirror is precise and objective - the woman looking looking at
her reflection still cannot see herself in its image
- People are so much more than what they look like on the surface
- The mirror only reflects how things appear, not what they are
● The mirror is objective - factual - trustworthy
- Can count on it to tell the truth
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