This is a great poem by Sylvia Plath, and one that
addresses in a very unique way the subject of ageing that seems to preoccupy so many
people nowadays. The image that your question refers to comes in the second stanza when
the mirror reports that the woman who is always looking at herself in the mirror will
often turn away and use other objects instead of the mirror to view herself. Note what
the mirror tells us:
A woman bends over me.
Searching my
reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or
the moon.
Faced with the
"exact" representation of herself that the mirror "faithfully" gives, the woman cannot
accept her ageing, and so she turns to other sources of light such as candles or the
moon so that her reflection will not be so precise and harsh, softening the wrinkles and
her ageing appearance. It is very interesting to remember though that in this quote the
mirror refers to the candles and the moon as "liars," which seems to contradict its
earlier statement that it is so objective and sees everything "unmisted by love or
dislike." The mirror is perhaps not so impartial as it seems to present itself after
all.
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