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Andrew Nguyen

White

AP English Literature Per. 3

9 November 2020

Self Reflection and Inevitability of Time

From reading the poem, “Mirror,” it seems to talk about a literal mirror in the beginning

and the purpose of a mirror. The purpose of a mirror is to reflect an image where as said in the

poem, the mirror isn’t cruel but truthful instead. Further within the poem, it talks about where it

is hung up/positioned, where it looks upon a pink speckled wall, where it flickers as it stares

upon the wall. The mirror seems to now be laying down horizontally where the woman seems to

be on top of the mirror looking into herself as to who she really is. In turn the mirror reflects

what it sees; however, in return of doing its purpose, it is then rewarded with tears and agitation

of hands. Even despite this, the mirror knows that it itself is important to the woman, where she

comes to the mirror everyday, where as days go on, she slowly loses her image of a young girl

and is slowly becoming an older woman. From this, there can be a shift that can be seen within

Line 8, where it goes from talking about the pink speckled wall to talking about the woman,

where it seems to go from a happy and youthful perspective to more of a gloomy, sad, and

realistic perspective in a sense. There are many instances of figurative tools such as imagery and

symbolism that can be seen throughout the poem such as “Faces and darkness separate us over

and over.” where in turn can show how the mirror only does one thing which reflects what it

sees. So when people don’t use it it is left in the dark not being able to see anything. Along with

this idea as well, it is mentioned within the poem that there seems to be a connection between the

speaker's heart and the pink speckled wall, but there is a barrier of sorts such as “faces and
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darkness” that separate the two. During the time of the 17th century, pink was commonly

associated with ideas such as charm, politeness, sensitivity, sweetness and such, but most

importantly, childhood. With this kind of idea seen, it can be interpreted as a separation of

childhood from her heart. As she begins to get older with time as seen throughout the passage,

she begins to lose the innocence of childhood as she transitions into adulthood, having to grow

up and manage many things, whereas with childhood, it could be interpreted as sweetful bliss, a

moment of joy and relaxation. By the end of the poem, it seems to be filled with sorrow as the

speaker reminisces of the past and comes back to the reality of the present. Additionally within

this quote, “Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish,” could also help the reader

imagine a scene of a fish dying where it begins to rise to the surface belly up. In turn this could

relate to the poem in the sense that the woman is losing her youth and is slowly approaching

death as she gets older literally. As mentioned previously, there seems to be a blocked

connection that separates the speaker from their own childhood and as a result of that, it can be

seen within the poem of gloominess and sadness and the mentioning of rising up like a terrible

fish. Possibly there may have been an issue that separates the speaker from the childhood that

she had previously, where possibly the current situations that the speaker is placed in is not in the

best times, where the speaker may preferably like their own past than the current one that the

speaker has. Seems to hate where he/she is at the moment of their life, where the mirror can

symbolize reflections back to childhood, where the purpose of a mirror in a denotative term is to

“show a reflection of.” Whereas as mentioned within the poem with reflecting things, it shows

them as it is without biases such as love or dislike. From this a possible theme that can be taken

away from this poem is that time is inevitable, where time can fly by in an instant without one

realizing it.