RandiLee Clem
February 17, 2015
Susan Puckett
English 102
MLA: Always include a title.
MLA: line spacing
Line spacing: Double space all of the document; do not have extra space; in paragraph formatting, set line spacing to double with zero space before and after paragraph. / corrected here.
The poem that many fell in with ? is, "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath. There are three features that caught the attention of many about the poem, and the first is, p2b the mirror is personified through self-reflection. <nice observation Next, the fish that is used in the poem is used as an image for the readers to have an idea of the pain some <first, address the meaning within the poem deal with while they are growing older. The last thing that Plath uses is the allusion that the lake gives and its symbolic meaning. Sylvia Plath shows expound self-reflection as the theme of the poem <theme should be stated as a sentence, not a single word> and is able to show it using personification, imagery, and the allusion the lake gives.
Review the conventions of writing about literature:
The theme should be stated as a sentence.
Discuss the text not the author or the author’s intention: Author vs. Text
See Johnson & Arp: Chp. 1, X. Stance and Style, S2 for examples: Johnson and Arp say to “write about the work” not about the author, “so try to avoid using the author’s name as the subject” and avoid using “the verb uses, since your focus is . . . on the result of the use [of the device]” (31-32).
Also, see the Unit 1 discussion of Reader Response; both indicate that the literary text stands on its own
In the poem, "Mirror," the mirror is the one who is the speaker of the poem, and it is personified. The mirror sees most of the time passing, and it sees more in a person that most do not. <support needed; use specific language from the text as support. Also, the mirror sees the real truth <support needed in the person looking into it <support needed , and while doing so, it is not passing judgment. The poem mirror states, "she G3b turns to those liars, the candles or the moon," and that [observation] shows that the mirror can be too truthful because she <the mirror? turns to two things that can make a person’s appearance false. A candle and the moon are said to take away signs of aging and can make a person seem younger than what they really are. Therefore, that is why they are consider liars. The way the mirror is portrayed in Plath’s poem is through self-reflection because the mirror passes more judgment, <earlier, the mirror is “not passing judgment” but no “passes more judgment” ?? and it is able to see the truth on the inside <The mirror can see beyond the surface ??? <support needed that can be known as “the darkness,” and it exposes more of a person than they may want. <If the candle and the moon do not reveal the truth because they are lesser lights, how does the darkness expose “more of a person”? Concluding sentence?
Paragraphing: The topic sentence introduces “personification,” so everything in the paragraph should demonstrate how the personified mirror contributes to the theme.
Transition to next idea needed.
Introduce the literary device. Imagery? Growing older will always be something men and women deal with because they are losing the youthful looks. <?? While the mirror is showing a young girl drowning, and another woman rising, [the] “Mirror” states, “and in me an old woman rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.” The fish is an image symbolizes? for appearance because fish are unattractive creatures. While, some say that fish are beautiful while swimming and the way the water and sun reflects on their scales make them seem so beautiful, but once brought to land, they are not as beautiful as they were portrayed. So, that is why the mirror says she is a “terrible fish” because that is what she feels that she is becoming.
The last feature that Plath uses is the allusion <An allusion is a reference to something