Mirrors!

The Collected Poems1961I 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 a 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 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.


This is a poem called "Mirror Analysis" by Sylvia Path. I chose to blog about this poem because in Jane Eyre mirrors are an important motif. Since we havent really discussed what this motif could be representing, I think this poem does a good job to get my opinion across. In the poem, the author itself is a mirror. She talks about accepting people for who they are, and ignoring faults. I think that one of the reasons mirrors are so important in Jane Eyre is the face that Jane can't do that. She can't just accept who she is and be happy about it, seeing past her faults. I may be wrong, but does anyone else have any thoughts on the mirrors motif?