As we move into a season of attending a myriad of parties and gatherings, there is an implement found in every house that we will be resorting to just before we step out for each

event: the mirror. They might seem simple but mirrors have always been important to the literary world. They have always occupied a special place in literature, particularly due to their presentation in novels.

The Mirror of Erised in the Harry Potter series or the mirror in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass are good examples, but we can go even further back to the myths of ancient Greece and find the story of Narcissus staring at his own reflection in the river, and in that story a different kind of mirror is to be found offering insight into who the person staring into the mirror truly is. Of course, those are all examples that come from the genre of fantasy. But there are many suitable examples of mirrors being used in contemporary fiction in a variety of genres. One of the most famous mirrors in literature comes from a poem, unsurprisingly called “Mirror”, that was written by the American poet, Sylvia Plath.

Plath’s “Mirror” is interesting because the persona of the poem is a mirror. Therefore, everything that is said in the poem, everything that is relayed to us is told from the perspective of, and the through the voice of, the mirror. This reminds us of the old adage: “What if walls could talk?” Based on the speaker in plath’s poem, it does seem as if pondering on what could be learned if mirrors could talk has as much worth as the things they would say would be quite stimulating and illuminating.

The poem begins with the mirror describing itself as “silver and exact” and without preconceptions. It says: “Whatever I see I swallow immediately / Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.” These opening lines highlight the ability of mirrors to reflect what they see exactly as it is – which is something that becomes more important later on in the poem. The use of the word “swallow” is used to not only to further enhance the personification of the mirror, but might also be used to hint at the ability of mirrors to lure people in, of mirrors to consume, in a sense, the individual who constantly stares into it, or, in other words, the individual who is obsessed with how he/she looks. Indeed, when the mirror in the poem refers to itself as “the eye” of a god, it is not completely lost on the reader as to why the mirror would consider itself to have so much power.

While the first half of the poem is used to establish the position of power the mirror occupies, the second part of the poem focuses on the relationship between the mirror and the woman who owns and uses the mirror. Harping back to Narcissus and the vanity that resulted in his doom, the mirror compares itself to a lake, noting how the woman is leaning over it and “searching my reaches for what she really is.” When the mirror tells us of the woman’s reaction when it reflects her body (there are “tears and an agitation of hands), we instantly get the impression that the poem is not merely some fun, witty verse where the mirror is the speaker, but it is a commentary on themes that include: truth and illusion, as well as youth and old age.

The woman in the poem has given the mirror the power it possesses, a power that is the same power that it has over her. The closing lines of the poem, where the mirror claims that “In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman / Rises towards her day after, like a terrible fish” summarizes the core issues in the poem and emphasizes the circular manner in which, day after day, the woman goes to the mirror seeking comfort, hoping to see herself as she wishes to see herself, and instead only finds misery when the mirror, playing its part, shows her the truth, as she is, old and not young and beautiful as she once was.

“Mirror” contains a moral lesson and it is one that fits well into this time of the year, when dressing up and cavorting around at social gatherings will become the norm for a few weeks. However, the end of year season is meant to signal two particularly important events that we often choose not to remember: the end of another year in our lives and the passing of time. So, the face you see in the mirror this year will not the same one you see in the years to come and, therefore, it is of the utmost important to not instill more relevance than necessary to that which lies on the outside, that which is temporary.