explication of 'Mirror' by Sylvia Plath

Mirror
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 the 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 a 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.


The speaker in this poem is trying to reconcile her own identity with the way society sees her, or what society expects of her. The speaker looks into a mirror (which represent society) and must deal with the harsh truths she sees reflected there. The idea that the mirror shows truth is a facade, however, because it is so conceited and selfish that it reflects what it wants about the woman to further its own agenda. Using descriptions of the mirror such as 'a little god' gives the mirror more power than the woman realizes. The fact that the subject becomes a lake (in place of a mirror) in the second half of the poem suggests that the opinion of society it growing larger and beginning to overwhelm the speaker. The line "In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman" represents the fact that all women, not just the speaker, are pressured by society's expectations and forced into a state of anomie. The act of drowning suggests that the speaker has lost her true identity to society.