Mirrors

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.

I came across this poem while researching different poems for my poetry essay. It kind of struck me after a first read, simply because I didn't know what to think after I had read it. I couldn't pinpoint a particular emotion or imagine the speaker's voice...I actually had to reread the poem a couple of times to even throw out some theories regarding the actual. A little background information revealed that the time period this poem was written in is significant because it was a time of growing liberalism concerning the sphere of women. 

I suppose the speaker is the mirror - a typical mirror with nothing particularly unusual about it. I think that is significant in noting, the idea that the mirror is normal - because the mirror is then able to highlight the simplicity and elegance of itself. I think the first stanza is most unique in the emphasis it takes on the mirror's tendency to stick to the truth, because the mirror represents something virtuous and sincere. This speaker is unlike society, it has no preconceived notions, it is neither misted by "love" nor "dislike." The speaker is pure and honest, unlike humans in today's society. At the same time it is sort of ironic that the mirror is almost personified in some lines. It "swallows" whatever sights it sees and it "mediates" on the wall. The mirror seems to desire the "speckled" wall that it sits across, but faces and darkness inhibits this connection. This can be taken both literally and figuratively. Perhaps the people that look in the mirror and the darkness of the area the mirror is kept keeps the mirror from the pink speckled wall. If the mirror represented a person, these faces could be society and darkness could be the combined setbacks of both society and the speaker setting back himself.

The poem then takes a shift and the speaker is now a "lake." When one thinks of mirrors and lakes alike, they think of a reflection. Reflection connotes physical appearances, but oftentimes the act of "reflecting" connotes something stronger and more poignant - an emotional feeling of deeper connection with one's internal and external environment. The lake represents what the woman truly is, and the she searches feverishly for her true self - thus highlighting the individual's innate desire to find meaning for his or her self. The speaker calls the candles and moon liars - their light may be first perceived as enlightenment but they are nothing but shadows in the face of the lake. The last two lines are very pivotal as they mark the woman as one that has "drowned a young girl." Perhaps the woman has lost of childhood searching for meaning for herself, or perhaps she has wasted her years of youth looking at her own appearance in the lake. But the lake now relates that the reflection is slowly changing, morphing into an "old woman," rising towards the woman like a "terrible fish." This essence of this "terrible fish" could be the loss of childhood and meaning searching for one's position and meaning, or perhaps it could represent the wasting away of women in such a prison-like society.

Honestly, I have no clue what the poet's intention for this poem was, but it is beautifully crafted and touching. Poetry has charmed me, once again.