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Personification In Sylvia Plath's Mirror

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In Sylvia Plath’s, “Mirror,” Plath uses personification that ranges from being a mirror on a wall to being a mirror in a lake, in order to show the point that mirrors only show the truth of the viewer's self. The mirror describes itself as “hav[ing] no preconceptions” and whatever it sees it “swallow[s] immediately,” which explains that a mirror cannot be tricked into seeing anything else, besides what is in front of the mirror. The mirror is not affected by any outside force, and thus cannot have any “preconceptions.” When the mirror is a lake, it ridicules other forms of reflection by mentioning a woman who, “turns to those liars, the candle or the moon,” which further illustrates the idea of the mirror being the best at showing the truth, …show more content…

Candle or moon light are like filters on a cell phone, while the filter will make the picture better by changing the lighting or making everything smoother, it is not the real picture that was taken. The picture has been altered to look better than the actual picture, which cannot occur in a mirror, thus the mirror telling must always tell the truth. Also, the woman needs the lake to display to herself who she really is, as Plath illustrates,”I see her back, and reflect [her face] faithfully./ She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands,” which reveals that even though the woman does not like her true self, the lake is happy that the woman knows the truth. While both the mirror and the lake use personification to tell about the truth, the mirror uses personification to tell how truthful the mirror really is, but the lake uses personification for an aging woman who uses the mirror as a reality check. Plath writes, “Faces and darkness separate [the opposite wall and I] over and over,” which implies that the mirror in the beginning did not enjoy revealing the truth to people because it wanted to pretend it had a heart; however when the mirror became a lake, it was never in darkness because it was right above a sun

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