"Mirror" Outline

“Mirror” Sylvia Plath

Thesis:  Sylvia Plath, employing intricate figurative language, explores the personas that a mirror is able to take on and shows that everyday objects are not always what they seem.  

A.      In the first stanza she personifies the mirror in its simplest form: propped up on a wall, observing everything that passes.

a.       “Whatever I see I swallow immediately/ Just as it is” (2-3). This personification explores the idea of the mirror as an impartial judge; it does not distort what it sees. Rather, a mirror just portrays what it witnesses.

b.      “But it flickers/ Faces and darkness separate us over and over” (8-9). This idea of “us” between the speaker and the mirror and the dramatization of darkness, which in reality could just be turning off a light switch, evokes a sense of sympathy for the mirror, an object normally overlooked.

B.      The second stanza, using personification, embodies the mirror as a lake and moreover as a companion.

a.       “A women bends over me,/ Searching my reaches for what she really is” (10-11). Here, the mirror becomes more than just a reflector; it is a portal to the soul, a place people go looking for themselves.

b.      “Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness” (15).  The relationship between the mirror and another person is explored again, creating the image of the mirror as a breathing, moving person.

C.      The last two lines place the mirror in the scope of time and show its constant presence though the world around it may change.

a.       “In me she has drowned a young girl” (17). This analogy illustrates how the mirror shows her a face she has not seen before; she is not the same person she was as a child.

b.      “in me an old woman/ Rises toward her day after day” (17-18). The mirror thrusts upon her the age she would like to forget. Every day, the mirror is a reminder of who she has become, which this analogy depicts.