Metaphorical difference between the mirror and the lake in the poem 'Mirror' for Sylvia Plath

Insert Name:
Insert Course Title:
Insert Instructor’s Name:
Date:
Metaphorical difference between the mirror and the lake in the poem “Mirror” for Sylvia Plath
Foremost the “Mirror” by Sylvia Plath categorically presents unavoidable issues on the difficulty of the truth through age and time. For instance, the mirror is used as the narrator as it figuratively says, ‘I am a silver and exact’, ‘whatever I see I swallow immediately’ just as it is’, is an indication of how personification is used to show feelings and thoughts. Besides, it is through the exactness of the mirror that one beholds things in their natural appearance.
However, in the preceding stanza, the mirror is further developed into a lake which also serves as a mirror although not exact as the earlier mirror. The lake provides a depth in which it considers issues. For instance, the lake’s perspective of the candle and the moon is quite different from the exact image on the mirror. The lake observes that the candle and the moon are non-light sources but mere reflectors of light. By arguing, ‘In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman rises towards her day after day, like a terrible fish.’ The author offers honest view through a woman who rises each day in growth towards old age while looking for her identity.
In her symbolic use of the mirror and lake, Sylvia Plath explores the core image of her idea by exposing the goal of truth by changing the reflective mirror into a lake which is regularly visited by a woman who searches the depths. The woman engages in search of truth through her nightly swims “Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon” (Plath). It shows the truth as being a mixture of objective and subjective natures and the woman is victim of both conditions. In the narration, th...