i can’t wait for school;) some people say adults should hold their emotions in and not release them, but sometimes it is good to let the tears flow, to let the anger out (when you’re alone, not onto someone else) b/c pent-up emotions can become quite unbearable and soon might explode. we are taught to be strong and tough not to show our weakness, but sometimes we need to let our emotions show to let them go and feel better about ourselves. keeping our emotions bottled up like a bell jar (reference to sylvia plath) will soon make us crack and the glass to shatter since we can only withhold so much. i remember one of the quotes from The Bell Jar and it was this “I keep all these thoughts locked inside afraid to show them. The lid of the bell jar seems to constrict me more and more. The glass jar is the transparency of the world and the fact I feel imprisoned looking through the glass into a surreal reality.” I had to read this book for summer reading for eighth grade and i hated it, but in my junior year when i revisited the book again for psychology with my former ap world history teacher (she teaches psychology), i began to see the book in a new light. Even adults have things to learn and also feel unsure of themselves and they should also stop to question themselves at times to what they really want not what the world wants of them so they can gain favor (paraphrased from my Achieving Goals meditation). I also like Sylvia Plath’s Mirror poem in which she is seeing different faces of herself. She says the mirror only speaks the truth, neither like nor dislike for herself. When Sylvia says
“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.”
I think she is struggling to find her self-identity, she looks over at her heart on the opposite wall, but it is only flickering obscured by dark faces. Her heart represents what she truly wants to feel, the pink heart beating loud with life and confidence, but it is on the opposite wall far away from her much like the way her goals in her heart are, blocked by darkness and obstacles. When Sylvia says this
“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 feel she is looking into herself, looking at her reflection and searching for her true self, but she doesn’t have the courage since she turns back to the liars and the things that hold her back.

When Sylvia says: “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.”

She wants to know the young woman that she used to me, the one with the dreams and hopes. The young woman makes her feel agitated as she finds herself back into the darkness when all she wants is to be free and young and not drowned in darkness watching her life pass her by (an old woman rises toward… like a terrible fish).

I think her poetry represents the insecurities that we all have. We all want to live our lives to the fullest, but sometimes we are confused on who we truly are. We struggle between light and darkness, fear of life passing us by and hold tight to our youth. All in all, this poem is about trying to find who you are despite the fact that there will be obstacles and to live life before life lives you.