"Mirror" consists of two stanzas that reflect each other, that are mirror images you could say, and that contain no obvious end rhymes or steady beat. Noting this, we can suggest with confidence that there is no closure, certainty or order in the stylistic choices the author has made, features that are perhaps reflective of her emotional state.

Rhyme tends to secure the lines and anchor them in a familiar sound, but here the poet has chosen to end each line with a different word, virtually unrelated in sound or texture. It's free verse, yet with so many periods (end stops, full stops) and limited enjambment, that the text almost resembles dialogue from a play.

LITERARY DEVICES

Personification

"Mirror" is a personification poem. That is, the poet has given the mirror a first-person voice. So the poem begins:

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.

This is the mirror speaking. It is direct, objective and open. It has personality. This device allows the mirror to address the reader (and any individual) at a personal level. You may know of a similar mirror in the fairy tale Snow White, where the vain, Wicked Queen looks in to her mirror to ask, "Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?"

In a sense, Plath is asking the same question, but she does not receive a flattering answer.

Metaphor

In the first stanza the mirror declares:

I am not cruel, only truthful,

The eye of a little god, four-cornered.

So the mirror becomes the eye of a little god, metaphorically speaking. And at the start of the second stanza (Now I am a lake) the poet uses metaphor again, as the mirror becomes deep, reflective water.

Simile

The final few words (like a terrible fish) constitute a simile.

ANALYSIS OF FIRST STANZA

This poem is all about appearances and the search for the self. The fact that the mirror is the voice and has the starring role is a little odd, but Sylvia Plath wanted to show just how powerful an object the mirror is in people's lives.

In particular, she wanted to highlight the issue that some females have with their image, and the inner turmoil that can be caused as the aging process picks up its pace. The poet's own struggle for a stable identity only adds to the idea that the face in the mirror must stay young, pretty and perfect.

Lines 1-3

The opening lines introduce us to the passive rectangle of silver, the glass and the shiny surface which only tells the truth and has no other purpose. Mirrors have no prior knowledge of anything; they simply are.

What Does the Poet Mean by "unmisted by love and dislike?"

The next line, too, emphasizes the savage non-discriminatory nature of the mirror. It's as if the mirror is saying, "To me you are food which I need to satisfy my insatiable appetite. There are no blurry lines; love or judgement has nothing to do with it. I will swallow you. End of story."

Lines 4-6

This objective theme continues as the mirror reinforces the idea of neutrality–it simply tells the story as it is, no fuss, no elaboration, no fabrication. And it is this quality of truthfulness which allows the mirror to declare itself as the eye of a little god; an all seeing minor deity holding disproportionate power over its subjects.

To strengthen its position within the room, the house, and the host's mind, it does little but "meditate on the opposite wall." Like some open-eyed, staring sage, the mirror sits contemplatively.

Lines 7-9

The wall is pink, speckled, and is now an integral part of the mirror's heart, suggesting that this silver-eyed god has gained a feminine side to its persona. Pink is associated with girlie things, but the connection isn't that clear. There are uncertain faces coming between it, and the wall of pink.

Is the mirror losing its grip on its own reality? Are the ripples of time starting to affect the smooth surface?

ANALYSIS OF SECOND STANZA

Whereas the first stanza concentrates on the exact truthfulness of the mirror and its ability to reflect precisely, the second stanza sees a transition: the mirror becomes a liquid, it gains depth and a different dimension.

Lines 10-12

With god-like, medium-shifting power, the mirror becomes a lake. In it is reflected the image of a woman (the poet? Any woman?) and she is bending over as one would over the surface of a lake to see the reflection in the water.

Seeing her reflection, the woman is uncertain of herself and needs to find out who she really is. But can a person truly find out who they are by merely peering into a lake? Don't forget, this type of water can swallow any image it comes across. Didn't Narcissus look into a similar lake, and was so overcome with his own beauty that he fell in and drowned?

The woman isn't interested in beauty, it seems. Perhaps she's more intent on learning about her emotional responses to her former self. Candlelight can't help her cause because it's a deceptively romantic way of looking at things, and the moon, likewise, governs only madness and the haunting of the blood.

The woman realizes that she can't dwell on the past.

Lines 13-15

Nevertheless, the mirror "sees her back," which is what the eye of a little god would do, and holds the image, as always.

The woman weeps, which pleases the mirror, perhaps because the tears replenish the water in the lake, or maybe because the mirror is happy that it has done its job of faithful reflection and feels rewarded.

But the woman is clearly upset because the past holds such powerful memories, not all of them positive. This part of the poem is crucial, for we discover the mirror's aim: to disturb the woman.

The deity has control of the human, which is how traditional stories often pan out.

Lines 16-18

The mirror believes it is important to the woman, and so it appears relentlessly. The woman looks at herself in the mirror each morning, so reliant has she become.

The revelation, hardly a shock, is that the woman's younger self is dead, drowned by her own hand. Replacing the girl on a daily basis is the face of an old woman, surfacing "like a terrible fish."

Imagine the horror of facing the mirror each morning and confronting an inner demon, which is what the poet conveys through her poem. The innocent, romantic, crazy girl floats lifeless in the water. And out of her there rises, from the (emotional) depths, a hagfish, a monstrosity.