AP Literature Poems

Mirror by Sylvia Path

To best represent the life of the mirror, the entire poem is written from the view point of the mirror itself. The figurative language used by the mirror enhances the narration and provides a more complex view of the mirror' surrounding and life. For example, "In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman/ Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish." This comparison of youth and aging,  provide insight on what the mirror is thinking and what the mirror sees as the time passes by. The personification of the mirror creates a relatable yet ominous connection to the mirror.
The mirror observes and sees the objects and people all around it. "Whatever I see I swallow immediately/ Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike./ I am not cruel, only truthful./ The eye of a little god, four-cornered." Humans are like the mirror, however, has a menacing feature, it has no emotions. 

Terrance this is stupid stuff 

In the first stanza, the narrator expresses a negative connotation to life. He expresses his frustrations and lack of hope with life. He represents his melancholy and depressed theme. He then goes on to argue that even though alcohol provides a happy escape from the world, this newly constructed reality is false and short-lived. In the third stanza, he justifies this claim by proclaiming that, "Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill, And while the sun and moon endure Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure, I'd face it as a wise man would, And train for ill and not for good." By preparing for the "ill", people can confront the terrible that will eventually find them. The final gives an example of how preparing for the worst brings the best. A King would introduce his body to dangerous toxins and eventually his body adapted and resisted the toxin. 


Metaphors

Sylvia Plath wrote as a wife and a mother at a time when what it meant to be those things was rapidly changing. Plath wrote this poem about a year before she gave birth, but while she writes about her own personal experience, she also draws from universal experiences of being a woman in any age. The speaker of the poem has her own take on pregnancy, but came off as bitter. She calls herself a riddle, an elephant, a melon, a fat purse, among other things that portray her indifference towards pregnancy and she comes across as unhappy about being an expectant mother.