Mirror Analysis

This poem is written in free verse, which means that it has no set pattern of rhythm or rhyme. Yet, Plath uses rhythm and rhyme deliberately. While her lines have no repeating pattern of stressed a...

It might seem that a poem written from the point of view of a mirror would have a pretty boring speaker, but that's not true of this poem. This mirror has a lot of human-like qualities, which keep...

This poem has two distinct settings. In the first stanza, the setting is probably a bathroom, because the wall is speckled pink, and there are a lot of faces and darkness in the room. If the room w...

Like a mirror, the sound of this poem is silver and exact; there isn't a syllable out of place. If this poem were a song, we think it would be slow and sad, a lament. The song would be performed wi...

The title, "Mirror," tells the reader who the speaker is in this poem, though we probably could have figured it out without the hint. The title keeps the poem from being gimmicky. We don't spend th...

Plath writes in many different styles, but this poem shows a style that is evident in much of her poetry: she writes severe poetry, but with a concise grace. While many poets write concisely and gr...

This poem is pretty straightforward, but readers might trip at the start of this slope if they don't figure out that the speaker is a mirror. On the first read-though, the shift when the mirror tur...

There's nothing steamy about this poem, which is about aging.

Narcissus (Lines 10-18)