Mirror, Mirror

There is a widely reproduced image of a cygnet, head cocked, looking into a framed mirror. Gazing back, somewhat sternly, is a large adult swan. The picture’s aim, presumably, is to edify children. It promises the fulfillment, completion or perfection of what the child already is, if only incipiently or potentially. In time, all things being equal, and with perhaps some self-reflection, every cygnet becomes a swan. Read this way, the picture is fatal: one entity is presented in phases of development, its perfected form predetermined and inevitable. If only the swan were wearing a toque or fedora, its maturity could be regarded as a goal, and not a cemented nature. Would not this fulfill the picture’s aim?

The swan’s apparent disapproval might lead one to read it less as the end or completion of maturation than as conscience, directing, hampering, and feeding the cygnet’s growth. Even an imperious swan will benefit, however, from the artfully placed accident: when conscience, the voice or image of assured and mature wisdom, wears a fedora, everybody listens.