Metaphors by Sylvia Plath

770 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Features of sylvia plath poem analysis

Metaphors by Sylvia Plath

The poem 'metaphors' by Sylvia Plath deals with strong issues of

pregnancy. The poem was written when she was pregnant. She wrote about

her mixed feelings and emotions.

The poem itself is a metaphor. In the word 'metaphor' there are nine

letters. There are nine lines, and nine syllables in every line.

Apparently there are also nine months of pregnancy. Each line is a

metaphor and each line represents different stages of pregnancy.

Line nine "Boarded the train there's no getting off" suggest that it

is inevitable. There is no turning back. She has no control over her

future. She is going through the firstly month of pregnancy and so

fears about the outcome. It's also a humorous line because "no getting

off" in colloquial terms means they'll be no sex for a while.

Line eight represents the second month of pregnancy. "I've eaten a bag

of green apples". "Bag of green apples" could suggest lumpiness,

perhaps she is starting to feel the weight of the baby. The words,

digestion, queasiness stomach ache all relate to morning sickness.

Morning sickness is essential at the early stage of pregnancy. The

line could also suggest that a fresh, new baby is developing, as for

the colour 'green' represents fresh, new- life. It also represents

nature, which suggests that pregnancy is a natural act.

Line seven represents the third month of pregnancy. "I'm a means' a

stage, a cow in a calf." At this stage she feels used and resents it.

"Cow in a calf" suggests that she feels uncomfortable and embarrassed.

She feels as though she is on a theatre stage where everyone is

looking at her and knows about her 'bun in the ov...

... middle of paper ...

...ted

in this fat purse". That's a very interesting way to describe this

stage of the pregnancy.

I would say the poem is very dramatic, because the whole poem is a

metaphor which makes it sound exciting. I think she is speaking

directly to the reader because she talks to us about her feelings deep

down. The first line captured my interest: "I'm a riddle in nine

syllables." I was thinking to myself what the poem is about. I noticed

that it had nine lines and nine syllables in each line. At first I was

confused. I found it quite difficult to understand because the

feelings and attitude change in each line. The poet was being very

emotional. After understanding the poem, I had pleasure in re- reading

the poem several times and approving it. I now know how one feels when

they are going through the nine month pregnancy.

Show More
Related

  • Similes In Eleven By Sandra Cisneros

    512 Words  | 2 Pages

    Imagine it’s your 11th birthday, an exciting event that should be fun and happy, but it turns out to be depressing and disgraceful. Well, that is what happened to the main character, Rachel from Eleven. Rachel is forced to wear an ugly red sweater that isn't hers which makes her cry. She repeatedly wishes she were wiser than eleven because she doesn't know how to respond to her situation properly. Similes and repetition contribute to the depressing mood of Eleven by Sandra Cisneros.

    Read More

  • Reflection In The Night By Elie Wiesel

    523 Words  | 2 Pages

    Wiesel’s community at the beginning of the story is a little town in Transylvania where the Jews of Sighet are living. It’s called “The Jewish Community of Sighet”. This is where he spent his childhood. By day he studied Talmud and at night he ran to the synagogue to shed tears over the destruction of the Temple. His world is a place where Jews can live and practice Judaism. As a young boy who is thirteen at the beginning of the story, I am very impressed with his maturity. For someone who is so young at the time he is very observant of his surroundings and is very good at reading people. In the beginning he meets Moishe the Beadle. Moishe is someone who can do many different types of work but he isn’t considered qualified at any of those jobs in a Hasidic house of prayer (shtibl). For some reason, though young Elie is fascinated with him. He meets Moishe the Beadle in 1941. At the time Elie really wants to explore the studies of Kabbalah. One day he asks his father to find him a master so he can pursue this interest. But his father is very hesitant about this idea and thinks young E...

    Read More

  • Budge Wilson's The Metaphor

    1008 Words  | 3 Pages

    Everyone has a different view on life. One's perception can significantly impact the way that he/she views the rest of the world. This perception can be both positive and negative. Perception often plays a big role in determining how one is viewed by both themselves and others. People are often judged by their appearance and their actions. However, it is things such as their personality and their character that truly define them as individuals. In Budge Wilson's "The Metaphor," Miss Hancock is faced with the fact that other individuals often overlook her. Though others may not be aware of what they are doing, their actions can greatly impact another individual throughout their lifetime. The way that one is perceived can both positively and negatively affect the way that others view them as an individual, which can greatly affect their entire life.

    Read More

  • Themes In Sweat By Zora Neale Hurston

    1620 Words  | 4 Pages

    One of the key components of literature is the usage of elements, these elements of literature provides readers underlying themes that authors put into their story. Without these elements of literature, the author would have no way to convey their true messages into their works. In Zora Neale Hurston’s story “Sweat”, Hurston uses many elements of literature to convey the seriousness and true relationship of couples that have a history of domestic violence. However, a specific element of literature that Hurston uses are symbols which give readers a clearer understanding of domestic abuse and most importantly, the characteristics of the victim and perpetrator of an abusive relationship. The symbols that Hurston uses in her story are what fortifies her plot and characters in “Sweat”. The symbols that Hurston uses are necessary because it destroys the typical gender role stereotypes between men and women. This is necessary because there is such a difference between the portrayal of men and women, men often being superior to women. Hurston uses through her symbol to show some equality between men and women or at points women can also be superior against men.

    Read More

  • The Sow by Sylvia Plath

    384 Words  | 1 Pages

    Sylvia Plaths poem, Sow, depicts a beast of mythic proportions through various images, comparisons, and specific word choices. By presenting the sow from both the point of view of its owner, neighbor, and of the speaker, Plath paints a vivid picture of farmyard decadence that the reader can relate to.

    Read More

  • Sylvia Plath: A Novelist and her Brief Life

    703 Words  | 2 Pages

    The highly recognized female novelist and poet, Sylvia Plath, lived a hard and tragic life. Plath was diagnosed with depression, a mood disorder that causes consistent feelings of sadness, at a very young age that made her life complicated in many ways. The battle continued on when she was diagnosed with severe depression later on in life which contributed to her death. Sylvia Plath was a very successful novelist and poet in the thirty short years of her life, however, the achievements were not enough to mask her depression battle that ran and ended her life.

    Read More

  • Night by Elie Wiesel

    884 Words  | 2 Pages

    How could one dieny that the mass murder of six million jews never happened? These revisionist, or deniers, like to believe that it never did. Even with the witnesses, photos, buildings and other artifacts left behind, they still believe that the Holocaust is a hoax. The Holocaust deniers are wrong because there are people who have survived that wrote books, there is proof that Jews were being killed, and other evidence and artifacts have been found.

    Read More

  • The Roller Coaster Life of Sylvia Plath

    1378 Words  | 3 Pages

    Often times we look through people and not truly at them. Sylvia Plath was one person who was looked through a lot when she desperately wanted to be noticed. As a striving poet and author in a time period where women were not expected to perform such tasks Sylvia struggled to keep it all together. Although she had her high points, like we all do, it remains apparent that she was battling with a deep inner conflict. Sylvia brings her emotional burden to life in her first novel The Bell Jar. Feminism, communism and a suicide attempt are all intertwined in this biography. The life of a not only a tortured poet but a struggling mother is obvious throughout her work. In order to grasp the lasting impression of Sylvia Plath, we have to understand where she comes from, how the critics and the people of her time viewed her, and the impact she left for the rest us.

    Read More

  • Night by Elie Wiesel

    988 Words  | 2 Pages

    Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, took the time to inform the world about his experiences as a prisoner of Auschwitz during the Holocaust in order for it to never happen again. Wiesel uses a language so unbearably painful yet so powerful to depict his on memories of the Holocaust in order to convey the horrors he managed to survive through. When the memoir begins, Elie Wiesel, a jewish teenager living in the town of Sighet, Transylvania is forced out of his home. Despite warnings from Moshe the Beadle about German prosecutions of Jews, Wiesel’s family and the other townspeople fail to flee the country before the German’s invade. As a result, the entire Jewish population is sent to concentration camps. There, in the Auschwitz death camp, Wiesel is separated from his mother and younger sister but remains with his father. As he struggles to survive against starvation, physical, emotional and spiritual abuse he also looses faith in God. As weeks and months pass, Wiesel battles a conflict between fighting to live for his father or letting him die, giving himself the best chance of survival. Over the course of the memoir, Wiesel’s father dies and he is left with a guilty conscience but a relieved heart because now he can just fend for himself and only himself. A few months later, the Allied soldiers free the lucky prisoners that are left. Although Wiesel survives the concentration camps, he leaves behind his own innocence and is forever haunted by the death and violence he had witnessed. Wiesel and the rest of the prisoners lived in fear every minute of every hour of every day and had to live in a place where there was not one single place that there was no danger of death. After reading Night and Wiesel’s acceptance speech of the Nobe...

    Read More

  • Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

    1035 Words  | 3 Pages

    Franz Kafka’s, The Metamorphosis, is a novella about Gregor Samsa, a man who devotes everything to fulfilling the needs of his family. Kafka’s existentialist perspective on the meaning of life is illustrated through the use of the protagonist of Gregor Samsa. Existentialism is a philosophy concerned with finding self and the meaning of life through free will, choice, and personal responsibility (Existentialism). Gregor is unable to fulfill the existentialist view of finding meaning in one’s life; he acted according to what his family wanted. Kafka’s belief that there is no meaning to life and that the individual has to create his own meaning in life is entirely missed by Gregor. Kafka uses the juxtaposing mindsets of Gregor and his family members to express the importance of an individual fulfilling his own needs.

    Read More

  • Night By Elie Wiesel

    847 Words  | 2 Pages

    How has your character changed in the book? What main events those lead to this change? How does the author show this change in writing?

    Read More

  • The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

    1366 Words  | 3 Pages

    What is in the spring of your life if the spring of a life refers to your first twenty years in your life? The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel by Silvia Plath, describes Esther Greenwood’s harsh spring of her life. Narrating in the first person, Esther tells her experience of a mental breakdown in a descriptive language, helping the readers visualize what she sees and feel her emotions. The novel takes place in New York City and Boston during the early 1950s when women’s roles were limited to domesticity. The repression of women’s roles in the American society during the 1950s and other influences such as her lack of confidence, her hesitance, her mother, and her feminist point of view seem to affect her mental breakdown.

    Read More

  • Stylistic Devices in Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath

    379 Words  | 1 Pages

    Sylvia Plath uses a diverse array of stylistic devices in "Lady Lazarus," among them allusion,

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath

    2076 Words  | 5 Pages

    Whenever I imagine a bell jar, the bell jar from Beauty and the Beast comes to mind. The beast’s whole life was entrapped because of the rose in the bell jar. As the rose petals dropped, Beast’s chance at becoming a human again, dwindled. The bell jar, an airtight cage, slowly suffocated the rose and him. You could say the same for Ester Greenwood from The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, the bell jar represents suffocation from her mental illness, slowly engulfing her sanity and the air she breathes. The bell jar also represents her losing a connection to reality and to people around her. The protagonist is trapped in the walls of glass, it slowly suffocated her sense of reality and sense of belonging in her world. Ester Greenwood, the protagonist

    Read More

  • The Tragic Life of Sylvia Plath

    1494 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sylvia Plath, an open minded, free spirited author and poet of a variety of many pieces. All of Plath’s poems are inspired by her personal life and how she viewed it.

    Read More

More about Metaphors by Sylvia Plath

Open Document