Mirror Sylvia Plath Analysis

In “ Blizzard” Sylvia Plath shows us the ritual a woman practices every day by looking into a mirror.The author gives the mirror a voice for it to communicate its thoughts across to us. Sylvia Plath uses imagery figures of speech and symbolism to show us that everyone will be forced to face the truth of aging , and death which in the end is inevitable.

To try to forget and move on from being raped, she needed to avoid looking at herself and seeing the person she has become. Ever since Melinda was raped, she has been frustrated with herself and has not been able to face her reflection. This shows that she could not face her feelings. Melinda’s coping strategy was to avoid others and avoid herself. The mirror is a symbol for her emotional struggles and that she cannot deal with them.

From the age of eight until her death, Sylvia Plath struggled with mental illness. Along with frequent therapy visits, she wrote poetry to reflect the many events in her life. She wrote about everything, from the things that brought her great joy to the things that drove her to attempt suicide. One recurring topic of her poems is her father, Otto Plath, who she adored until he died of undiagnosed diabetes when she was eight. This event sparked a lifetime of depression and anger towards her father. It inspired her to write some of her most famous poems, one being called “Daddy.” She describes it as “an awful little allegory, in which the speaker of the poem felt compelled to act out” (Brown and Taylor 1). His death plants a fear of abandonment

Consumed with Vanity In the essay “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self” (1983) by Alice Walker exhibits the effects vanity had on her from a young age until she became partially blind due to one of her brothers accidently shooting her eye with a BB gun. Because of this incident, Walker was forced to confront her fears—not being beautiful and never looking up—regarding her physical appearance using rhetorical strategies to help contribute to her struggles of becoming comfortable in her own skin once again. Throughout Walker’s narrative she adopts the use of chronological order to show the effects vanity had on her in different times of her life.

Intro. Bradbury uses mirrors to symbolize seeing one’s self clearly. Clarisse is a mirror for Montag. “How like a mirror, too, her face. Impossible; for how many people did you know who refracted your own light to you?

Any less the black man who/bit my pretty red heart in two.” (Plath) This is another great example of imagery in this story because, it makes you think about an evil person committing a crime. However, she’s actually talking about how she felt when her father was mean to her. The words Sylvia Plath use’s in this poem are dark and they make you feel a sense of fear throughout the whole poem.

Unlike last poem, this time the narrator is not a mirror, because she has the ability to “pinch” and “look at myself in the mirror”, however, this narrator’s attitude is very similar to a mirror: she does not feel the pain and suffering of herself or other people, but it appears that she does not want this, because she is “frightened” by it. Then the narrator headed to the “streets”, where all kinds of misery happen: loud “shouts”; “children with dirty faces”, they are apparently very poor, because they “ask for charity”, even sell their body for money; also there are “tanks” and soldiers with “bayonets”, so the narrator is in a war zone. After she saw the terrible scene, she can “feel” and “hurt”, but soon she “feel nothing” again, the surroundings

Section I — Of Vanity and Reflection In Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s Allegory of Prudence, the viewer is presented with a young woman who gazes at a mirror. The painting conveys a moment of prolonged reflection and self-evaluation that encourages the viewer to pause, if only briefly, and utilize a moment of reflection in art to turn the viewing inward upon the self. Prudence’s moment of prolonged reflection is created by line, compounded by the color and lighting of the painting, and reinforced by the interactions of shape that emphasizes focus on the mirror. The painting utilizes the interaction of line, color, and scale to display the subject’s moment of reflection, but also to question the fine line between self-reflection and vanity.

In “Initiation,” Sylvia Plath tells the story of a girl, Millicent, and her search for acceptance in the wrong place, and her eventual discovery regarding the importance of individuality. To accomplish this, Plath uses bird imagery, which chronicles Millicent’s transformation into one who values individuality as opposed to conformity. She uses “flock” to describe the sorority and club mentality portrayed in the piece, and “heather birds” to symbolize an individual. However, while these piece is grounded in a young girl’s search for acceptance, as evident in the words “Millicent had waited for acceptance, longer than most,” the piece can also be viewed as a microcosm of society. This is true as, similar to the sorority within the piece, the “select flock”, or the group in which most desire to be within larger-scale society, looks down on those who are “a bit too different,” a phrase which a member of the sorority uses to describe a girl who had not been chosen to join the

5,6) the issues that have been mentioned above are expressed. Since, especially black women, are considered to be living in the shadow this passage exposes the feelings and representation of black women in society. Their existence in the world which is not considered and respected. Considering especially the fact that the lyrical I is a black maiden, she seeks for recognition and acceptance among the other figures of the poem. Referring to contemporary issues, the lyrical I would be classified as a lower ranked person since she is black and being occupied as a maid, which clearly makes her powerless and voiceless in society.

There is a recitative-style introduction before the first verse as well as at the end of the song played by a digital sounding harp. This is sung

The way that Sylvia Plath presented the image of women in her poems drawattention of many to the problem of patriarchy and overshadowing the importance of the female role in the society. She was a great poetess and a literary revolutionist in a female world. By combining irony, extendedmetaphors and a great use of language she was able to show the inequality and the dominance of man over woman in the society. She showed that even as, according to the society,a comparatively weak personcould fight for the right cause with her firmest weapon,her extraordinary style of writing. She revolutionised the world of poetry and presented women as a very strong part of the society capable of accomplishinggreat things.

This is understanable given the state of her marriage at the time that this poem was written. Plath seems torn between

Even when she realized the reality of her father, she still tries to go back to him. In lines 58-61 “At twenty I tried to die…………… /And they stuck me together with glue” Plath uses imagery to show that even as bad as Hitler, she will always look up to her

In order to show the manner in which Dickinson’s and Plath's poems portray gender relations and, more specifically, how they granted women a strong voice, I will analyze several poems and a novel. Historical background of that time will allow us an insight of the important processes in which many women were engaged. These processes refer to the First and Second Wave of Feminism. Although Dickinson and Plath were not active members of these movements, they are considered to be one of the cornerstones of modern and more equal world. 2.