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The Shattered Mirror Oedipa

256 Words2 Pages
The shattered mirror continues to be an important symbol in this novel and serves to tie the book further with the myth of Narcissus. After Oedipa’s affair with Metzger, “things grew less and less clear…she went into the bathroom, tried to find her image in the mirror and couldn 't. She had a moment of nearly pure terror (Pynchon 33).” Like Narcissus and the pool of water the mirror serves Oedipa in a similar fashion, it reflects the woman that society has shaped her to be but the shattering of the mirror shows an end of that. The mirror earlier in the novel served as a narcissistic connection to Oedipa’s old self who was okay with the lot in life that she had been dealt, but the breaking of the mirror symbolizes the break of the hold on her

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