The Mirror

            
             What do we see when we look in the mirror? Does it tell how things revolve around looks and how others see us? I think that a search in a mirror is in the end a search for oneself. We identify ourselves by our physical presence. Many things reflect our true self and distort our image, as we want to see it? This poem seems to be a progression of age ending in death.
             The "Mirror" seems to me a very powerful poem in that it takes the image of the mirror and leads us to feel that while we may come to know ourselves, it is merely a reflection. It is possible for us to ever really see our own face, and so by association, even our own soul. When we look in the mirror we are searching for proof of ourselves as physical entities, we look not only to make sure we are acceptable but also to assure ourselves that we are there at all. It tells how things really do revolve around looks because a great deal of the population in this world cannot seem to get passed that. This poem is a statement about society's image of women. Society places a huge role on women to look good, and I think that the "mirror" shows women that they do not need to wear make-up and dress fancy. We need to accept aging gracefully.
             The woman stares into the water to see herself, but all she is really doing, in looking at her reflection, is witnessing the death of her youth and the appearance of an old woman whom she does not recognize. A search in a mirror is in the end a search for oneself. The old woman has just realized that her youth is gone forever, and that death is just around the corner. When the woman in the poem "turns to those liars, the candles or the moon" she is looking for acceptance and assurance that they still see her the way she wants them to. However, looking in the mirror herself, all she sees are the imperfections, the failures. The mirror is a very sad poem, because it confronts and dispels some of the basic ideas by which we live our lives.