Print bookPrint book

Lesson Four - Mirror

Site: MoodleHUB.ca 🍁
Course: ELA 30-1 RVSO
Book: Lesson Four - Mirror
Printed by: Guest user
Date: Monday, 10 November 2025, 9:05 AM

Table of contents

Introduction

mirrorLesson Four - "Mirror"
Duration - 2 blocks (2 x 80 min + homework)

"In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman / Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish." - Sylvia Plath, "Mirror"

While we may not be able to control what happens to us in life, we certainly are in total control of how we respond. That may help us in our quest to determine our own destiny.

Consider the impact significant events have on an individual's ability to determine their own destiny?

"Mirror" is a poem that can easily resonate with many women. In it, a personified mirror un-judgmentally reflects a woman's changing appearance over the years. Here, the mirror admits the extent of its influence - the woman has had to face the truth of aging by looking at herself in the mirror's truthful face each day. What is most haunting about the poem is, in fact, the mirror's disinterested tone, which reminds the reader that time and truth do not care about our vanity and depressing concerns. Ultimately, we are left to our own devices when we want to find happiness in the face of tragic forces like time and death. These forces are particularly difficult for a woman in a patriarchal society, since a woman is defined so much by her beauty. In lines like these, the power in Plath's writing helps what could be a novelty poem become a harsh depiction of hopelessness and loneliness in the face of time.

Lesson


Read the poem "Mirror" and the summary and analysis which follows.

Read and think about the information presented in the websites on the Resources page.

Watch the video linked on the Resources page.

Assignment 1

Respond to the questions posted in the U3L4 Forum: Mirror 

Respond to the questions in as much detail as possible in order to earn full marks.

The forum is worth 50 marks.

Your first post - that is, your answers to the questions posed - are worth 35 of those 50 marks. 
Compose your answers in a document and then copy and paste them into the forum.
If you compose in the forum window, and it is open for too long, it may time out before you click "submit" and all of your work will be lost!!

The remaining 15 marks are earned by your comments on your classmates' posts. 
You must comment on at least three of your classmates' posts.
Writing "I agree, good post" will earn you no marks, as that engenders no discussion.

The forums in this course replace the discussions that would be held in a traditional classroom.
Be sure that your comments add to a discussion.

Assignment 2

(40 marks)

Open a new Word document. Label it E301U3L4surname
In this document, write the good copy of your personal response to text as outlined below.
Submit this assignment using the Dropbox for U3L4 Mirror personal response

Your response should be between 600 and 1200 words.
Historically, on the diploma exam, students who write 600 words tend to score around 50%. Those who write closer to the upper range of 1000 - 1200 words tend to reach the Standard of Excellence, which is 80% or higher. View 1200 words as a cap, however, and not as a target. Writing MORE than 1200 words does not necessarily improve your mark. It may, in fact, do the opposite. Choose your words judiciously. 
  • Consider the themes present in Plath's poem, "Mirror".
  • What does this text suggest to you about the impact significant events have on an individual's ability to determine their own destiny? Support your idea(s) with reference to the text presented and to your previous knowledge and/or experience.
  • You may want to review U1L2 and U2L1 before you begin.
  • Use the thesis planner to define and refine the keywords in the question before you begin.  This will ensure you are addressing the ENTIRE topic and have given some thought to how you will organize your response.

In your writing you should

  • select a prose form that is appropriate to the ideas you wish to express and that will enable you to effectively communicate to the reader 
  • discuss ideas and impressions that are meaningful to you
  • respond from a personal, critical and/or creative perspective
  • consider how you can create a strong unifying effect

Your assignment will be marked using the "personal response to texts" rubric.

Conclusion


"The mirror may change into a lake, but it doesn't seem to age as time passes, unlike the woman who sees herself aging in her reflection in its waters. We don't find out that youth and old age are involved in this poem until the last few lines, but throughout the poem, we get hints that time is passing. In the second stanza, we see that the woman in the poem is distressed, but we don't know why until the last two lines, which show that the effects of passing time may be the source of her troubles." - Shmoop

- Consider how any kind of an event, seen through a particular lens, may carry enough significance to have an impact on an individual's ability to determine their own destiny.