Consider the last two lines of the poem again. Why do you think the old woman sees herself as a terrible fish? Why did she choose to compare her to a fish? Why do you think she chose to use the word "terrible"? Write your answer in two
hundred words.
OW

Terrible fish' in the last line symbolizes that the lady mentioned in poem mirror is growing older, she is finding her image of youth, but she is not getting it, due to her viewing of old age image she considered herself as 'Terrible fish'. it symbolizes the woman agitating at the loss of her youthful beauty .Day by day her reflection in the mirror is going worse and worse as there is no charm left and she looks like a terrible fish. Symbolism is where an object is used to mean something other than its typical meaning. Given that people can interpret things differently, the defining of a symbol can differ for each individual reader. That said, some symbols have become to be identified as universal (when the critical analysis of the symbol is accepted by all/most readers). In regards to the "terrible fish" seen in Sylvia Plath's poem 'The Mirror," the fish could represent the aging woman who is struggling to hold onto her past. The poem speaks of a mirror who shows the reflection of the wall opposite its mounting. The second part of the poem goes onto deepen the meaning behind a reflection seen in both the mirror and the lake. The mirror, now calling itself a lake (personification), recalls the life of the young girl "drowning" in its surface. Instead of the young girl, lost to the depths of the lake, an old woman is seen in the reflection of the lake "rising like a terrible fish." This fish could symbolize the old woman grasping for her lost youth in the same way a fish opens its mouth at the surface of the water. Both, trapped by the surface of the water, the fish and the old woman are both searching for something outside of the lake.

op: object of preposition