Mirror - (Annotation)

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful-
The eye of the little god, four cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

In order to better understand this poem, I believe it is crucial to take a good look at the life of the author. Sylvia Plath’s writing tends to be quite dark and depressing. It reflects a lot of the hardships she endured. As I began to look into the author’s life I realized just how much heartache surrounded her. She lost her father at a young age, attempted suicide in college, and was abandoned by her husband later in her life. She was left in poor circumstances to try and care for her two daughters. Her life and her writing show her volatile emotional state. This overview helps give us a perspective of her psyche as she may have written this poem. The tone is very depressed and lonely. It exudes a feeling of isolation and hurt.

This poem personifies a mirror, giving it human characteristics and a voice. It is evident within the first line that it is the mirror that is speaking in the poem.

“I am silver and exact.”

 The first stanza appears to be a possible flash back of someone in their youth. It tells of a mirror which “is not cruel, only truthful.” A mirror that reflects many faces, but it also stares at the opposite pink wall and sometimes darkness. This first stanza may also represent a childlike innocence. Children are also not cruel, but truthful. They say what they mean. It is often said that kids say the darndest things.

But the second stanza seems to not only portray a lake, but also an older woman. One who “is searching for what she really is.” Too often society gives women the notion that their identity can be found in the way they look. The two are often intertwined. This woman is disheartened by what she sees. This is evident in the line,

“She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.”

 The mirror, which is now a lake still faithfully reflecting her image notices that the woman has turned her back to the lake and instead “turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.” This could be a literal meaning or it could represent romance. Perhaps the woman has looked for her identity or image to found in a romantic relationship. But what they conveyed to her about herself was not truth.

The last two lines of the poem show that she is bitter about what she sees.

“In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman

Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.”

She sees her past has drowned and she is despises what has risen to the surface. She is older and yet she is still struggling to find her identity. This poem is perplexing and perhaps a bit difficult to try and understand. There may be multiple interpretations, however by looking into the author’s life you get a better understanding of where she is coming from.

Hills Like White Elephants - (Reflective)

To be honest, when I first read "Hills Like White Elephants" I didn't think there was much to the story, but boy was I wrong. It wasn't until we began talking about it in class that I realized just how much depth was there. I realize now that as my teacher says, "Art conceals art." The beauty of Hills Like White Elephants didn't come through until I read it a second time after our class discussion. In class some people felt for the American in the story. They thought he seemed like a genuinely nice guy who was concerned for Jig's feelings and well-being. I of course had not felt that way during my first reading. Because this is such a modern piece of literature it has embedded pauses, layered meanings and much ambiguity due to the fact their are no tags labeling the dialogue. This leaves so much of the story up for debate and interpretation. There are times when you don't even know who is necessarily speaking, let alone the tone in which they are speaking. It wasn't until after the discussion in class that I decided to try and look at the story differently. I had a negative view of the American and felt like he was subtly manipulative and really didn't want anything to do with a baby that may hinder his current comfortable way of living. But there were many men in class who said they felt like the American was sincere. When we read the story a second time through in class I tried to see it through their perspective and it really made a difference in interpretation. Depending on how you read the story and what tone you chose to attach to which dialogue, the story had a different feel. It all depends on your perception, much like in life. I hadn't particularly loved the story on my first read, but after we discussed the symbolism of the setting and looked closer at the scene, I really began to admire this piece of literature. It is so open ended, and I liked that about it. It never told you anything, but let you use your imagination.The first read, I saw the story ending with a decision that had yet to be made, but I felt like it would end up negative. However, the second time through I tried to read it a different way, and felt like the couple would end up keeping the baby. Either way you read it, it is fascinating to think about all that can be said by saying very little.

A Work of Artifice - (Annotation)

We discussed Marge Piercy's poem, A Work of Artifice in class briefly. This poem had powerful symbolism to me. It is a poem about the oppression of women in society. It compares a woman to a bonsai tree in an attractive pot. Piercy is stating that the Bonsai is a tree that has the potential to grow 80ft tall on the side of a mountain, but due to the careful pruning of the gardener, it only stretches to be 9in high. She is comparing the possibility of the natural identity of a woman with the reality of the artificial and constricted identity that culture places on her. They keep her confined in an "attractive pot" of beautiful dresses and curled hair.

This poem made me realize how difficult poetry can be to write. It wasn't until we started discussing the nature of the poem in class that I realized that such detail went into writing it. Not only does the poem convey powerful imagery of women and bonsai trees, but even the precise layout of the poem was intentional. Like the carefully pruned bonsai the poem has also been pruned. All the sentences are kept very short. That is all but one. All the sentences are short except for the sentence, "could have grown eighty feet tall". The poem not only displays a  powerful piece of imagery and art through each word written, but it also portrays powerful imagery in the placement of those words. I truly have an appreciation for this poem.

The poem goes on to talk about how if the tree was eighty feet tall it may be destroyed by lightening. I believe this line refers to a natural way of coming to an end which is preferred, rather than an artificial controlled environment. The use of the word gardener is very interesting to the poem since it is not an evil word, although we may interrupt that pruning and controlling the bonsai is cruel. Gardeners are people we consider to bring the best out of a landscape and out of a plant, but this gardener is doing the opposite. It didn't become clear until I choose to look up the word artifice.

I looked it up as it is not a common place word in my personal vocabulary. It turns out that it is defined by Miriam-Webster.com as a "clever or artful skill". It is also mentioned as a "false insincere behavior" in the social concept of the word.  It is used to trick or deceive others. Another dictionary called it outright fakery. This one word brought everything else into perspective. The gardener isn't a gardener at all, although that is how our culture may perceive him. He is insincere in his care for the plant. He is pruning the bonsai all the while crooning over it. He is declaring how lucky the little tree is to even have a pot while at the same time he calls her weak. This is out "outright fakery". He tries to deceive the plant to believe she is something she is not. This type of oppression is not always as blatant like the bound feet of another culture may seem to us. Piercy is saying that it is the subtle deception of curlers in a woman's hair. The perceived cultural norm or confinement of how a woman is to look, act, or behave. It is manipulative. The gardener croons, pretending to be caring for the tree. But the manipulation is that he is stunting her growth under what the text in my literature book calls the guise of kindness or concern. An artifice is considered an artful ruse. In doing this the culture sees the bonsai as beautiful, but that beauty is artificial. Truly the bonsai could have been something quite grand if left to grow in the natural world.

"artifice." Miriam-Webster.com. 2012. http://miriam-webster.com/ (1 February 2012).