Mirror

In the first stanza, the "I am not cruel, only truthful" phrase reveals the mirror's personality and charter. Unlike humans a mirror cannot judge her with opinions. Sylvia Plath uses onomatopoeia to give the mirror human characteristics. On line five she writes "The eye of a little god, four-cornered" which shows that the mirror is given God-like powers over the women. It becomes almost an obsessive relationship between the mirror and the women because she looks to the mirror for comfort only to confronted with the truth about your youth wasting away.

The mirror triggers conscious and unconscious memories of her life faithfully. On line thirteen it reads "I see her back, and reflect it faithfully" once again showing that truthful charter of the mirror. Regardless of the fact she hates her reflection the women becomes dependent on the mirror, and on line fifteen you can see that relationship were it says "I am important to her. She comes and goes." The phase "I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions." Shows that a mirror is not capable of showing anything else, then what is put in front of it. The mirror shows no color and has no preference.

Although the mirror revels reality the women still clings to objects that blind her from the truth. In the second stanza, the phase "Then she turn to those liars, the candles or the moon" shows that the woman is attempting to hide her flaws behind the darkness. It is very clever that Sylvia Plath used the candles and moonlight in this poem because those two items usually are used for romance. While searching for her identity she contradicts herself by running away from the truth, instead of embracing it.

Even away from the mirror the woman is forced to face reality through nature. The lake is very similar to the mirror because they both reveal the women's true identity and honest reflection. Plath uses a metaphor to refer to the candles and moon as liars because they just reveal shadows, and they only show half of the big pictures. The candles and moonlight don't give the exact truth like the mirror. The candles and moon are just distractions to finding the essential self. The candle and moonlight show her a deceptive delusion by hiding wrinkles, dentures, hair loss, and weight gain.

The phase "Now I am a lake" reveals the transformation of the mirror. The woman then realizes even outside of her home she can't