Page 4 - Microsoft Word - 8.2 class-6 Ch-8 mirror ln

people their true selves like a god who assists us in the discovery of our true nature.
It is thus highly idealized in the poem. The mirror here stands as a symbol of
unsullied truth and honesty.

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 we see the interaction of the mirror with the exterior. It keeps looking at the
opposite wall which is pink and has spots on it. The mirror also says that the wall has
become a part of its heart and that it doesn’t like being separated from it. The phrase
‘part of my heart’ is interesting to note here. On one hand the mirror is shown almost
emotionless, governed only by truth, but on the other hand it is also shown to have a
heart and despite being “unmisted by love or dislike”, as stated in the earlier lines, it
shows a shred of affection. Along with the feeling of loneliness mentioned earlier, we
also witness the mirror’s cainophobia (fear of change or novelty).

It can also be argued that the mirror is used as a conduit by the poet to express
herself. The poet ‘swallows whatever she sees’, that is, adopts any mode of thinking
projected towards her in an attempt to fit in. And in this she has lost her true self. In
this sense she is like the mirror. This may perhaps be the reason why we have such
an unusual speaker, ‘a mirror’ as the voice of the poem.

Second Stanza:
“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.”
Next we see the lake as a mirror. A woman is shown looking at her reflection in the
lake. Finding it disagreeable she turns away in sadness. The lake, being a kind of
mirror, is truthful as well. It shows the woman exactly as she is, which is
disagreeable to her. This blunt honesty of the lake-mirror and her own unpleasant
state is the reason for her sadness. The woman is becoming old now, but she used
to be young and beautiful once. She mourns the loss of her youth and beauty every
time she sees her reflection in the lake. Thus, the idea of ‘truth causing agony’ is
explored in the poem and is the central idea or theme.

The poem can be said to be a comment on the struggle of ageing. Old age is
inescapable, but the idea of ageing is not received well by everyone. The poet here
has represented the same sentiment. The woman looks at old age as a corruption
and degradation of herself from what she used to be. Plath was herself riddled with
such ideas. In her semi-autobiographical work, ‘The Bell Jar’ we see her trying to
establish her role in life and struggling with it. A lack of self-esteem and self-