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Comment on the themes of death and suicide in the poetry of Sylvia Plath
Comment on the themes of death and suicide in the poetry of Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath' s poetry
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Sylvia Plath, born to a middle-class family, was a delicate person who has a tendency to be a perfectionist that most people would consider her as an archetype academically. She is well-known for her exceptional ability to express into words her dreadful memories and experiences as well as her delightful ones; she was an extraordinarily gifted writer with a natural feel of the language, simply intelligent and calculated. Behind the struggles expressed in Plath 's work is the fact that she suffered from depression, suicidal tendency which made her underwent mental therapy, and that included electro-conclusive therapy (ECT) (Cooper, 2003). Most of her published works act almost as her autobiography, portraying her tragic life and death. This …show more content…
One that can be realized instantly upon reading this poem is the vivid imagery and symbolization. There is subsequent portrayals of the color red with the scarlet shoes, wine, and roses, which could symbolize death, as in blood, and/or passion, as in red fire in some cultures. This could also mean that her passion comes from death. This is a polysyllabic poem with 10 syllables each lines and slant rhymes can be seen in the poem. The rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b with repetitions of end letters in the last two stanzas. Each lines in the last couplet end with the letter K, which are strikingly sharp upon reading, just like how she hears the "caustic" clock chimes. Assonance is rich and is present throughout the poem and can be first seen in the first line: "The prince leans to the girl in scarlet heels", which also directs the atmosphere to a romantic scene. Furthermore, in the third stanza, the line "Guilt-stricken halts, pales, clings to the prince" demonstrates consonance. Plath created a sense of movement quite dramatically by using the words "reels," "revolving," "slide," "gliding," and "whirling". She is a master at putting layers upon layers of meanings and elements of …show more content…
It expresses the mixed feeling of this new experience of motherhood: delight, optimism, and doubt in some ways. The poem was structured of six tercets (stanzas consisting three lines). In the title, "Song" may refer to the newborn 's cry and "Morning" could be a play of word, intending to articulate 'mourning ', as she is afraid of losing her time, just as in "Cinderella"; she is afraid of losing her youth. Metaphors are scattered throughout the poem. The line "Love set you going like a big fat clock" is a simile, a metaphor for the baby 's future, a new life to look for as a product of love. In the second stanza, the word "Our" is making reference to the couple, Plath and her husband, quite obviously, "magnifying" her arrival, objected here as a "New statue." "Your nakedness" from the next line emphasizes the innocence of the baby, which "shadows [Plath 's and her husband 's] safety", bringing a sense of uncertainty and fear to them. The poem then displays Plath 's look at this experience: as something that has been taken away from her to have its own life, an "Effacement at the wind 's
“One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself.”- Shannon L. Alder, American author. Even with all the temptation and pressure we feel just to fit in today's society, or to be normal, it's crucial that you hold on to your passions, goals, dreams, values, and to hold on to yourself. Being yourself is very hard to do especially in today’s society. Such as the short story “Initiation” by Sylvia Plath.
The first two stanzas, lines 1-10, tell the readers that Plath, for thirty years, has been afraid of her father, so scared that she dares not to “breathe or Achoo.” She has been living in fear, although she announces that he’s already dead. It is obvious that she believes that her father continues to control her life from the grave. She says that she “has had to kill” him, but he’s already dead, indicating her initial promise to forget him. She calls him a “bag full of God,” telling us that she considers her father a very strong, omnipotent being, someone who is superior in her eyes.
"The bell jar hung, suspended, a few feet above my head…” For most people, when the name Sylvia Plath comes to mind, the word “psychotic” is the word that follows; however, there was more to Plath than her demented works. Throughout her shortened life, Plath had a variety of titles bestowed upon her: daughter, sister, student, wife, mother, teacher, author, and poetess However, Sylvia Plath was a haunted soul, as she also had the labels of “manic depressive” and “bipolar.” Her constant struggles with her mental illnesses are evident in her writing, especially her semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar.
Throughout the poem, Plath contradicts herself, saying, ‘I was seven, I knew nothing’ yet she constantly talks of the past, remembering. Her tone is very dark and imposing, she uses many images of blindness, deafness and a severe lack of communication, ‘So the deaf and dumb/signal the blind, and are ignored’. Her use of enjambment shows her feelings and pain in some places, in other places it covers up her emotional state. She talks of her father being a German, a Nazi. Whilst her father may have originated from Germany, he was in no way a Nazi, or a fascist. He was a simple man who made sausages. ‘Lopping the sausages!’ However she used this against her father, who died when she was but eight, saying that she still had night mares, ‘They color1 my sleep,’ she also brings her father’s supposed Nazism up again, ‘Red, mottled, like cut necks./There was a silence!’. Plath also talks of her father being somewhat of a general in the militia, ‘A yew hedge of orders,’ also with this image she brings back her supposed vulnerability as a child, talking as if her father was going to send her away, ‘I am guilty of nothing.’ For all her claims of being vul...
Sylvia Plath was a troubled writer to say the least, not only did she endure the loss of her father a young age but she later on “attempted suicide at her home and was hospitalized, where she underwent psychiatric treatment” for her depression (Dunn). Writing primarily as a poet, she only ever wrote a single novel, The Bell Jar. This fictional autobiography “[chronicles] the circumstances of her mental collapse and subsequent suicide attempt” but from the viewpoint of the fictional protagonist, Esther Greenwood, who suffers the same loss and challenges as Plath (Allen 890). Due to the novel’s strong resemblance to Plath’s own history it was published under the pseudonym “Victoria Lucas”. In The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath expresses the themes of alienation and societal pressure on women in the 1950s through symbolism, an unconventional protagonist, and imagery.
Not only the words, but the figures of speech and other such elements are important to analyzing the poem. Alliteration is seen throughout the entire poem, as in lines one through four, and seven through eight. The alliteration in one through four (whisky, waltzing, was) flows nicely, contrasting to the negativity of the first stanza, while seven through eight (countenance, could) sound unpleasing to the ear, emphasizing the mother’s disapproval. The imagery of the father beating time on the child’s head with his palm sounds harmful, as well as the image of the father’s bruised hands holding the child’s wrists. It portrays the dad as having an ultimate power over the child, instead of holding his hands, he grabs his wrists.
"About." Personal Blog, n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2015. [When finding an explanation for the similarities between the writers, it is important to play close attention to biographies. In case the psychoeconomic factors that Ruonco describes are true, then biography constitutes most of the development of the Sylvia Plath affliction. Moreover, the biography provides an insight into the views of the author for a better and more accurate understanding of her poetry. Furthermore, it is imperative to use her auto-statement since she referres to her "muse" as something out of her control which can be traced to Kaufman's
Plath writes in seven line stanzas. She uses a unique rhyme scheme that changes from in each stanza. Occasionally she isolates one line in order to annunciate its meaning. She also uses enjambment to help stress the meaning of certain lines. Plath also like to use metaphor and simile in her poem. Lines nine and ten she uses simile when she writes, “Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut. Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in”. She is stationary in her bed and almost doesn’t want to see everything anymore but she cannot hide what is going on around her.
As the tone changes the perspective of the reader changes as well. There is no clear way to determine whether the speaker is responding to her situation with the appropriate amount of madness or is actually going mad and escaping into her own mind. Plath’s poem shows how a woman 's happiness was defined by her relationship to a man, which is enough to infuriate or drive any woman insane. The speaker struggles to continue her very existence because of her lost love. It is true that the speaker is very emotional and feels things very deeply, but that is not enough to prove that she had lost her mind. By the end of the poem the speaker seems to realize that she is wasting her time waiting on a man. She would rather have a present love that is completely unfathomable than a real love that is not around. The repetition in this poem makes the reader believe this loss is actually causing the speaker to lose her mind, but through changing tones that mirror the emotions anyone would go through in a situation of loss like this the speaker’s response is completely
Sylvia Plath’s life was full of disappointment, gloominess and resentment. Her relationship status with her parents was hostile and spiteful, especially with her father. Growing up during World War II did not help the mood of the nation either, which was dark and dreary. At age 8 Plath’s father of German ancestry died of diabetes and even though their relationship was never established nor secure, his death took a toll on her. “For Sylvia, who had been his favorite, it was an emotional holocaust and an experience from which she never fully recovered” (Kehoe 90). Since she was so young she never got to work out her unsettled feelings with him. Even at age eight, she hid when he was around because she was fearful of him. When she was in his presence his strict and authoritarian figure had left an overpowering barrier between their relationship. Sadly enough by age eight Plath instead of making memories with her dad playing in the yard she resented him and wanted nothing to do with him (Kehoe). These deep-seated feelings played a major role in Plath’s poetry writings. Along with his “hilterian figure,” her father’s attitude towards women was egotistical and dismissive, uncondemning. This behavior infuriated Plath; she was enraged about the double standard behavior towards women. Plath felt controlled in male-dominated world (Lant). “Because Plath associates power so exclusively with men, her conviction that femininity is suffocating and inhibiting comes as no surprise” (Lant 631). This idea of a male-dominated world also influenced Plath’s writing. Unfortunately, Plath married a man just like her father Ted Hughes. “Hughes abandonment apparently stirred in her the memories and feelings she had struggled with when her ...
The main line that directs the poems feelings is "The wraith of Love's sweet Rose is here, It haunts me everywhere! ". The ghost of "Love's sweet rose" is in my life and mind. The ghost of that rose is in my presents and is with her everywhere she goes.
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.
Almost as if something or someone is constantly trying to break free but is stopped every time before reaching its climax. Maybe a dire forecast for the entire poem? 2.2. The Turning Point Things suddenly change when the Lady of Shalott sees '… two lovers lately wed…'; (70) one night (part II). She starts to realize the possibilities the exterior world has to offer, but they are still beyond her grasp. The Lady begins to regret her weary little life inside her chambers.
Plath’s father died early in her life leaving her with unresolved feelings, and this brought a lot of troubles later on in life. Sylvia was a great student but when she was overwhelmed with disappointments after a month in New York, she attempted suicide (“Sylvia Plath”). After receiving treatment and recovering, she returned to school and later moved to England where she met her future husband, Ted Hughes (“Sylvia Plath”). Their marriage with two children didn’t last when Ted had an affair. They separated and Ted moved in with the new woman, leaving Sylvia and their two children. Battling depression during this time, Sylvia soon ended her life. She left behind numerous writings that many might see as signs of her depression and suicide attempts.
The poetry of Sylvia Plath can be interpreted psychoanalytically. Sigmund Freud believed that the majority of all art was a controlled expression of the unconscious. However, this does not mean that the creation of art is effortless; on the contrary it requires a high degree of sophistication. Works of art like dreams have both a manifest content (what is on the surface) and latent content (the true meaning). Both dreams and art use symbolism and metaphor and thus need to be interpreted to understand the latent content. It is important to maintain that analyzing Plaths poetry is not the same as analyzing Plath; her works stand by themselves and create their own fictional world. In the poems Lady Lazarus, Daddy and Electra on Azalea Path the psychoanalytic motifs of sadomasochism, regression and oral fixation, reperesnet the desire to return to the incestuous love object.