We know that the mirror is in a house because the poem confirms it when it says “most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall”, these words clearly show this.
Plath has used the whole of the second stanza as an extended metaphor. In this stanza the mirror appears as a lake. A woman is “searching for her reaches for what she really is” clarifies that the woman is trying to see herself as another person which is not her. “Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon” in order to hide her face from what it really looks like due to the dim and flattery light produced by these.
The poems’ last quote probably means that the mirror has seen this woman since she was a child, so the woman “has drowned a young girl” in it. And now, after being so many years with the woman, the mirror sees how she grows older each day, reason why ageing “rises towards her day after day like a terrible fish”.
From my point of view, I think Sylvia Plath was a woman that was more frightened of getting old than death. This must have been the reason why she suicided before getting too old.
However, D.H. Lawrence sees getting old in a completely different way to Sylvia Plath. His words in the poem “Beautiful Old Age”, explains that he thinks ageing “ought to be lovely”.
Lawrence has used many similes in his poem which shows his point of view about ageing. In the first three verses, Lawrence shows that he thinks ageing is a “wrinkled smile of completeness that follows a life lived undaunted and unsoured with accepted lies”. From his point of view “if people lived without accepting lies they would ripen like apples, and be scented like pippins in their old age”.
The poems last two verses are what a girl and a young man think about this matter.
Lawrence has described ageing as a wonderful moment of life and his poem “Beautiful Old Age” shows this.
On the other hand, “Warning”, written by Jenny Joseph is a very extravagant poem. She hasn’t written from experience, but yet thinks that to grow old is a life to act like she has never done before. Actually, in her poem this is what she describes. When she grows old she shall “wear purple with a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit her”. The poem has many more aspects of how she will behave: “I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves and satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter”. The poem describes herself as an irresponsible and playful person.
Joseph thinks that her life nowadays is boring because she has to “have clothes which keep her dry and pay the rent and not swear in the street and set a good example for the children”. Now Joseph can’t do these things because she is still young, but when she grows older she will be able to live the way she wants to. She won’t have to be nice to people anymore nor show an example to the children.
In the last verse she says that “maybe she ought to practise a little now” because then “people who know her are not too shocked and surprised”.
Shamil Akram Yr.10B
