poetry texts, poem archive at plagiarist.com

I have some freaky homework where im supposed to write about what i think and feel about this poem..readin ur ideas has really confused me...i agree its to do with fear of growing old and watching touself day by day in a different sense picking out every fault about you that only you see..but if she dies at 31 and still ahd all these view about being an old women i think the mirror represented her only true aqquaintance.some one who would neevr lie..stay with her until her old age...wkae up to her...and always prsent the fankests views..

The mirror is in a bathroom facing a "pink wall with speckles. Most women's bathrooms are girly, hence the pink wall. God sees all, so the mirror as a little god sees all of your flaws. The faces and darkness are the different faces that look in the mirror each day and the darkness is when everyone is sleeping and the lights are out. The lake is the sink under the mirror. The liars "candles or the moon" are actually soft lighting that is found in most bathrooms. "Drowned a young girl,and in me an old woman" is clearing the passing of time, coming into full maturity. Everyone is wondering about the terrible fish. Well I think she tries to wash away her age (wash her face) in a sink filled with water and when she brings her face back up from in the water she sees herself in the mirror. She is still old and now she is wet too. With no make-up on we'd all look like a terrible fish too after washing our faces in the sink, still dripping with water. (like a fish out of water) Try it and you'll see what I mean. I guess she is a fish out of water so to speak because she is not prepared to be old yet. As far as her being 29 when she wrote this, some women view turning 30 as getting old. I know I did. I am now 31 and I was my face in the shower where there are no mirrors.

well, the mirror, i think, is a nice poem, with a lot of personification. As for emotion, maybe not so much but it was there... u have to think of what kind of emotion it is.... some emotions aren't huge right-in-ur-face things, they're subtle. sylvia plath's work is good, she is a good poet, but heres where she lacks.... who wants to read a poem about self pity? who wants to read and analyze and dissect a poem about some woman who thinks turning 30 is this huge deep soul changing depressing thing and feels sorry for herself? too many people today are taking after this style of writing... you have whiny sad depressed rock singers going on and on about their sad sad life.... i mean, dont get me wrong, my favorite type of music is rock, but u have pop rock crap about oh im so depressed because ive lived a sad sad life and im lonely and hurt but you dont care and even though you dont give a damn im gonna whine about it for another 4 minutes. im not saying some of these people havent lived sad lives, and im not saying sylvia plath wasnt depressed when she turned 30, but WHY?!?!?!?!?!?!?! why should she be so distraught? oooh, 30. big deal. get over it, the mirror does NOT talk, it does NOT swallow, it only shows you exactly what there is, no more no less. and if your turning 30 this should be a good thing not a bad thing. her work is good, its good to learn from, but man, she has problems. 30 years old, boo freaking hoo.

i think this poem can be seen from many different poin of views...who knows what SP was thinking when she wrote this....

you are missing the whole point of the poem. In this poem, Plath is using the mirror to describe her own fears about growing older. I think if you would read about Plath's life up to her 29th birthday, you would realize that her life was MUCH harder than most. Most people think of 30 as a milestone age - not really young but not quite old. Plath is dreading looking into the mirror to see herself age. I agree with the comment posted earlier about Plath finding herself no longer an "all american beauty" but housewife with a cheating husband and 2 children with no support. The mirror is beautiful because it is simple and direct.

I read earlier that the mirror does not have any emotion..this poem is full of emotion! It is quite a sad poem. At the time that Plath wrote this poem she was going through a severe depression, thus making her only think of negetive things. The thing about getting old-doesn't mean getting old like literally, however depression influences people to think that they're useless and think negetive about everything. So she just didn't want to go on with her life...kind of hard to explain what she was thinking at the time! but yeah... This is one of my favourite poems and consists of quite a few poetry devices that could be interesting to study..! So yeah...Toodles!

I loved this poem! I'm 13 years old and we are doing this poem as our project. when it says "faces separate us over and over" does it basically represent her depression and lonliness?? thats the only line which I thought I needed a second opinion on.

Sometimes when I read this poem I feel as if the mirror does have emotions. Like one of those people who think there your friends and tell you things truthfully but really hurt your feelings caz there not a close enough friend. Like the mirror feels because this person visits it so much that it has a friend. And it stands proudly and shows this person it's reflection. in the lines where the "lake" says it thanks me with a tear and an agitation of a hand, reall ythats not thanks at all but the mirror feels like it is. I find this ahrd to describe how im feeling , I will go and improve my vocabulary and come back to further explain my analyse.

This poem in haunting, beautiful, gripping & yet breaks your heart. Perhaps the poet is trying to tell us that we uncover ourselves when we are alone, who we really are - or who we want to be, or wish we were. Maybe the unknown discovery of looking into the 'Mirror' unveils the self to be an angel.. or on the other side, some nasty, awful, ugly creature.. as referred to by the 'terrible fish' quote.

The poem is told by mirror, but Plath refers to herself. The mirror can only tell the truth, it doesn't lie. The woman (Plath herself)is aging and she doesn't like it. She is jealous of the moon and the candles who are still beautiful. The moon will always be there, and the ligth of a candle looks perfect.
The woman tries to find who she once was in the mirror (searching my reaches for who she really is).
So I believe the poem is about aging, although I'm not always sure wether it's just physical aging, but also psychological aging. It just depends in what state of mind you are when you read it...