Girl Before a Mirror by Picasso

¶ … Beautiful Girl Combs Her Hair" by Li Ho and "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath discusses the theme of beauty uses the object mirror as a symbol to illustrate and effectively use the theme of beauty. In Li Ho's poem, he tells us of the extraordinary beauty of a woman whom me witnesses combing her hair using a 'jade comb,' and makes use of the object mirror as an accessory that the girl uses in her 'beauty ritual.' "Mirror," meanwhile, is a thought-provoking poem that tackles the issue of beauty and vanity as dictated by the society. Plath uses imagery and the object mirror to symbolize the important of beauty to an individual, and how the mirror 'mirrors' the desperation of an individual who aims to achieve beauty (in frustration and great desperation).

The similarity between the two poems is that both use imagery and the theme of beauty. Imagery was used in 'A Beautiful' to illustrate the girl' beauty (a "lotus blossom" and "a wild goose on the sand"). Beauty is also an essential theme here because it mainly describes the girl's ritual of combing her beautiful hair, which, to the poet's opinion, adds p to the beautiful face the girl obviously possesses. However, Li Ho's poem differs with the of Plath's because Plath uses the theme of beauty to discuss both beauty and ugliness in an individual. While Li Ho focuses on rich, beautiful imagery, Plath concentrated on imagery that is effective through sarcasm and descriptive details about an individual's frustration over beauty and youth (which essentially is almost always associated with beauty). This is illustrated when Plath ends her poem by saying that the voice's constant trips to the mirror has "In me drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman," which illustrates how the subject's constant desperation and conquest for beauty only further worsen her agitation about herself. Thus, beauty in Li Ho's poem is purely and richly delivered through imagery, while Plath's "Mirror" uses the 'ugly' side of too much preoccupation with beauty, as revealed by the Mirror.