Theme Of Mirror By Sylvia Plath

Born on October 27, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts, Sylvia Plath would later be recognized as one of the greatest poets and novelists of the post-war era. Plath was raised in an academically focused environment; her father was a biology professor and her mother was a shorthand teacher. Contrary to the writing style of the time, Plath wrote about genuine emotions experienced by women. Additionally, she wrote about personal life events and the people that surrounded her. The poem, Point Shirley, was about a town that bordered hers, and two other famous poems, Daddy and The Beekeeper’s Daughter, were about her father. Most notably, Sylvia Plath is the author of the novel, The Bell Jar, and poetry collections called The Colossus and Ariel, Winter …show more content…
It was extremely common in the fifties as well as today for woman to conform to what a male idealizes in a woman.For example, television shows such as: I Love Lucy, Father Knows Best, and Leave It to Beaver show the subordination women and hypermasculinity from men was normal (“Masculinity”). Additionally, the poem, Mirror, is summarized as a “variation on the theme searching for self in reflection because the woman in the mirror is seeing a reflection not of herself but of the self she is constrained to be by male expectation” (Freedman). Freedman is explaining that whoever was looking in the mirror was constantly conscious of what was the ideal “image” made up by not only men, but …show more content…
The protagonist, Esther Greenwood, is a nineteen year old college student who lives through a summer in New York City as a guest editor for a fashion magazine. Because of her severe depression once returning home, Esther is put into a mental hospital, where her treatment only made the mental illness worse. Similar to Sylvia Plath, an article explaining The Bell Jar wrote: “Esther feels she is too ugly and too smart to compete for men with the fashionable coeds she encounters at college” (“Explanation”). The Bell Jar was partly based off of the events that Plath lived through. Sylvia Plath’s skiing accident, first suicide attempt, and an obscurely alluded-to gynaecological haemorrhage- which may have been caused by rape- were all included in the story. In fact, the novel was actually published under the name of Victoria Lucas because Plath was afraid that it might offend the people that the characters were based off of (“Explanation”). Although the initial reaction to The Bell Jar was mixed, critics praised the novel’s tone and figurative language. While the plot of the story was extreme, it was very real and unexpected for that time period, so when the book was released it surprised many people. Topics like: sexism, feminism, rape, and women in careers are still relevant in modern society. The Bell Jar is as much a satiric portrait of American society in the 1950’s as it is a