The central theme of both the poems is old age. Sylvia Plath and Jenny

The central theme of both the poems is old age. Sylvia Plath and Jenny Joseph express their ideas of old age through the poems Mirror Mirror and Warning Introduction The central theme of both the poems is old age. Sylvia Plath and Jenny Joseph express their ideas of old age through the poems ‘Mirror’ and ‘Warning’. The intention of Sylvia Plath and Jenny Joseph are different. The message they want to get through to us differs. Jenny Joseph gearing us up towards old age through Warning and Sylvia Plath making old age sound terrible in Mirror. In the poem mirror, Sylvia Plath uses a lot of dull and negative words making old age sound terrifying â€Å"darkness† â€Å"drowned† and â€Å"terrible†. â€Å"Then she turns to those liars, the candles the moon† in this sentence she refers to the candle or the moon being a liar putting a negative image. Where as candles and moons are know to be a source of light making it positive. However the poem is very complicated to understand because it has a lot of hidden meanings. She use a lot of vivid language and personification meaning bringing lifeless object to life, for example when she says â€Å" Now I’m a lake† first line second paragraph. The lady also portrays her life to be like a non-living thing mirror, lake. This is because she describes her life to be less objective comparison to Warning. Here Jenny Joseph describes the lady to be quite cheerful, happy, and looking forward to old age. There is a rhythmic pattern in Warning. The repetition of the word ‘and’ and ‘ I shall’ goes on through out the whole poem. The word and suggest Jenny Joseph is writing while she’s thinking, as she goes along perhaps. This is telling the readers she is looking forward to her future and old a... ...tive, uglier. The word terrible is used in both the poems. Mirror â€Å"Like a terrible fish† giving it a negative image. And Warning â€Å"You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat† making it a positive word. The woman in Mirror is dreading old age in fear of becoming uglier. And the woman in warning looks forward to it believing that it is fun being old, like having her youth back. Conclusion I think ‘Warning’ by Jenny Joseph is more successful in getting its message across to the readers. Her message is that old age can be really fun, and after reading the poem I believe so too. On the other hand ‘Mirror’ by Sylvia Plath is also slightly effective but not as much. Sylvia Plath is trying to say old age is something to dread because of how you may look but no everything is about your appearance. Overall Warning wins for being more effective and lively.