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The Face In The Mirror Sylvia Plath Analysis

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“The Face in the Mirror” is a poem written by English poet Robert Graves in 1957. It talks about a man’s perspective of aging. “Mirror” is a poem written by Sylvia Plath in 1961 and tells us about how a woman perceives aging. Both have a similar theme, rhyme, and a sad tone. They also differ in theme, rhyme type and rhyme scheme, and tone. The first similarities and differences between these poems are found in their theme. Both “The Face in the Mirror” and “Mirror” tell us that old age is not as bad as it appears to be and that the passage of time is not always cruel. This theme is evident in the lines, “He still stands ready,” (Graves line 14) and, “I am not cruel, only truthful,” (Plath line 4). However, each poem also has its own separate additional theme. A theme found in “The Face in the Mirror” is that a person’s exterior does not always reflect their interior. An example of this is, “He still stands ready, with a boy’s presumption, to court the …show more content…

Besides these similarities, the poems also differ in their themes, structures, and tones. The themes of the poems helped me realize that old age is not as terrible as it seems and that looking old does not mean we are also decaying on the inside. The structures of the poems allowed me to understand that they were chosen to maintain the flow of the words as well as to communicate the poems’ meanings in the best possible way. The tones of the poems reinforced what I know to be true about the different ways men and women view aging, with men not being very affected and women despairing. All of these separate inferences enabled me to conclude that all people view aging differently, though the majority of each gender feels one way, and that no matter how young you may feel on the inside, a part of you will always feel sad about the passage of

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Sylvia Plath was an American author and poet born in Boston, Massachusetts on October 27, 1932. She is most recognised for her only novel The Bell Jar, and became the first person to receive a post-mortem Pulitzer Prize. Plath began writing by keeping a journal at a young age, after publishing several entries she won a scholarship to Smith College in 1950 (“Sylvia Plath Biography”). While studying, Sylvia Plath was accepted as a guest editor at Mademoiselle magazine in New York.

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As the poems continue, Plath’s tone isn’t fully exposed whereas Harwood’s piece instantly demonstrates the disparity and regret of the storyline. Plath continues perplexing readers through the description of the mirrors, however the mirror itself is not mentioned, being “the eye of a little god”, the mirror compares itself to a god, powerful and truthful. Hung “on the opposite wall”, the mirror always sees the same figure, “pink with speckles” until “it flickers”, demonstrating the mirror now personifying itself and suggesting that the relationship between the wall and mirror is not as once though symbolising hidden truth. Harwood continues introducing the tone of regret, whilst sitting in the park surrounded by her “two children whin[ing] and bicker[ing]”, a loved one from the past passed her by, however, they are “- too late” for her, exchanging small talk with the individual the mother feels a sense of regret. Plath and Harwood effectively employ metaphors throughout the middle of their poems to explore the idea of regret and

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