The song, ‘Man in the Mirror’ by Michael Jackson, is about having to change yourself before being able to start changing the world. Michael Jackson sings about how certain situations he has seen has really affected him. For example, the impoverished children in the streets and how he desires and feels that to make a really major change, he must start with himself, which is the man in the mirror. This song focuses on self-reflection and the inner struggle of one individual to become better, more upright and more moral. It brings about questions such as, “What is the individual’s responsibility to society? Can we change the world by changing ourselves? What is the power of one person to create change?”
The song by Michael Jackson, begins by creating a winter setting by using the literary device, imagery. In the lyrics, “ As I turned up the collar on my favourite winter coat,” Jackson then uses personification in “This wind is blowing my mind” – giving the wind human traits because the wind cannot actually blow your mind. It also is imagery because it shows us his state of mind by telling the audience that physically, the cold weather is not affecting him because of his wealth making him able to afford a coat, but mentally because he is greeted by the sight of “kids in the street, with not enough to eat”. This juxtaposition of his wealth and the children’s poverty shows that they are from different classes. While the he has the luxury of coats, the children are not even able to get food to eat. Then Michael Jackson rhetorically questions himself saying, “who am I, to be blind?”, This is a metaphor as though he is not physically blind, he compares himself to one that is blind.
Michael Jackson then continues once again using imagery in, “A broken bottle top, And one man’s soul, They follow each other on the wind ya’ know” to convey his feelings to the audience. The image of “A broken bottle top” hints that he may have had emotional issues and therefore he resorts to drinking away his sorrows or venting out on items. Besides, as a broken bottle top implies that there will be something leaking out of the bottle as the top is spoilt, the writer could also be trying to say that (given the theme of the song) he felt hope and happiness was leaking out, not only from him but from the people who were suffering physically. Also, in “they follow each other on the wind ya’know” – as the wind is very inconsistent and moves around aimlessly, he tells the audience that he was a man who was lost in his problems, but now he has found light and wants to start by changing himself to help others.
127 our experts are availableright now
Michel Jackson uses a lot of imagery throughout his song Man in the Mirror. For example, “a widow deeply scarred, someone’s broken heart, and a washed out dream, they follow the pattern of the wind ya’ see” he used imagery to further highlight the difficult situations of many other people. “A widow deeply scarred” brings an image to the mind of the emotional and mental hurt that the widow would be going through such as the stress, the pain of perhaps losing her husband. “Someone’s broken heart”, we know that one’s heart cannot actually be broken, but the author uses this painful image to bring across one’s anguish and despair. This makes it a metaphor. Lastly, in “a washed out dream” – we think of many clothes being washed again and again till they have faded. Jackson uses this effective imagery to show us how an individual’s dream is faded. It evokes a sense of sympathy for the less fortunate people out there who are unable to live a stable and healthy loge.
Although the tone of the poem starts off self-reflective, and also with a hint of despair and gloom, yet all the more it inspires one to work towards being a better individual especially when we are much better off and more privileged than most. It is peppered with imagery – even “Man in the Mirror” is an image and a figurative language of speech to indirectly refer or show us that the “man in the mirror” is not anyone else, but ourselves. Most of the imagery paint very glaringly the pitiful plight of the less-privileged and less wealthy and causes us to examine ourselves – why should we be wallowing in our insignificant and minute problems when there is a greater cause out there which we can aspire to?
