Mirror, by Sylvia Plath - review.

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“Mirror”

        Mirror, by Sylvia Plath is one of the best examples to show how valid, vanity is in a woman’s life. I think this is one of, if not the oldest poem from all of which we have read. For a start her name, being Sylvia is quite old-fashioned and not often heard of now, but the most obvious clue to the date, which I can pick out is her use of language and how serious and deep the poem is. It is not so much formal or informal, but just very descriptive with words that I wouldn’t expect in a more recent poem.

The whole poem seems very serious, meaningful and quite personal to her. She is able to describe the situations very precisely using great metaphors throughout. The first stanza describes a mirror using personification. This makes it seem like the mirror is talking and giving its appearance and opinions of itself, but actually these are Sylvia Plath’s own thoughts brought into the poem. This is what she thinks a mirror is like.

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The first three lines are cleverly imposed with ‘s’ sounds repetitively, called sibilance. These ‘s’ words seem to represent watery sounds. It is a pleasant sound, which makes you associate a watery mirror with a reflective glassy lake, where they seem to both be the same object. This also inter-links with an alliteration of ‘s’ in the second line, where she writes,

“Whatever I see I swallow immediately”.

This line shows examples of three techniques I have written about, personification of the mirror, sibilance and alliteration of ‘s’.

        

        There are no rhyme schemes, but there are a few places in the poem where ...

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