“Spinster” by Sylvia Plath is a poem that consists of a persona, who in other words serves as a “second self” for the author and conveys her innermost feelings. The poem was written in 1956, the same year as Plath’s marriage to Ted Hughes, who was also a poet. The title suggests that the persona is one who is not fond of marriage and the normal rituals of courtship as a spinster is an unmarried woman, typically an older woman who is beyond the usual age of marriage and may never marry. The persona of the poem is a woman who dislikes disorder and chaos and finds relationships to be as unpredictable as the season of spring, in which there is no sense of uniformity. In this poem, Plath not only uses a persona to disclose her feelings, but also juxtaposes the seasons and their order (or lack thereof) and relates them to the order that comes with solitude and the disorder that is attributed with relationships. She accomplishes this through her use of formal diction, which ties into both the meticulous structure and develops the visual imagery.
Foremost, in the first stanza, Plath gives the visual imagery of a woman taking a walk in the midst of spring with her lover. What ordinarily would be a pleasant image, is depicted as very formal and dull as the walk is “ceremonious” and the male companion is not a romantic lover, but is rather just one of the woman’s suitors (line 2). By using such words as “ceremonious” and “suitor” to explain what may seem as an enjoyable experience on the surface, the woman implies that she is indifferent towards the man and just walks with him to keep up appearances or in other words to do what is customary with the norms of courtship. The woman also reveals a considerable amount of displeasure “...
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...t, threat, or love, either” (29-30).
Overall, the imagery that Plath creates is framed by her diction and is used to convey her emotions toward all relationships and probably even her own marriage to Ted Hughes, who had rude, disorderly habits. Even the structure of the poem is strict in appearance as each stanza ends with a period and consists of exactly six lines. In addition, the persona of the poem is very detached and realistic, so much that it is hard to distinguish between her and Plath, herself. However, Plath insinuates that the woman actually wants love deep down, but finds the complexity and unpredictability of love to be frightening. As a result, she settles for solitude as a defense against her underlying fear.
Works Cited
Plath, Sylvia. "Spinster." Perrine's Sound & Sense. Ed. Helen Triller. 12th ed.
Boston: Lyn Uhl, 2008. 393-394.
“Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through” is the last line in the poem. It is not until the end that we realize that not only is she through with the memories of her dead father and the adulterous behavior of her husband, but she is through with herself. This last line is clear – Plath has just announced to her readers that she will be committing suicide again, and plans on being successful at it. So, instead of this poem being Plath’s victorious confession to the horrible men in her life, and finally allowing closure, the poem is an outline of her promising death. Plath is still pained by these men, and cannot completely go on being alive. She believes that death is her only solution, and maybe in a way it was. Perhaps she is finally free, and finally able to “breath” and “Achoo.”
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The novel, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (2011) written by Sherry Turkle, presents many controversial views, and demonstrating numerous examples of how technology is replacing complex pieces and relationships in our life. The book is slightly divided into two parts with the first focused on social robots and their relationships with people. The second half is much different, focusing on the online world and it’s presence in society. Overall, Turkle makes many personally agreeable and disagreeable points in the book that bring it together as a whole.
...oire of poetry with a male personage acting as an opposing force. Her work is full of content hinting at her mental instability, yearning for her deceased father, and her desire to end her life. It can be understood that Plath had a sort of Elektra complex obsession with her father. In her personal life, it caused several suicide attempts (one every decade of her life) and her to seek another male to fill the role of her missing father. It was not until she encountered the poet Ted Hughes that Plath thought she had met her soul mate; it was also because of this fiery relationship that Plath tragically ended her life when she ended her seven-year marriage to Hughes after discovering his illicit affair. Ultimately, in her desperate and distressed state, Plath ended her life; she could not face her inner demons, and no one could truly offer her the support she sought.
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Plath employs a shift to accentuate a change in time. The speaker of the poem says “I am silver and exact/Now I am a lake” (1, 10) to indicate an alteration in time. The purpose of the device is to convey an adjustment in c...
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