The Themes Of Modernism In Plath's Postmodernism

Postmodernism come to being in the late 20th century. The postmodernist movement appears in variety of areas of study that include art, music, film, literature etc. To understand were postmodernism came from we have to take a look at the modernist period, which rejected the old Victorian standards of how art should be created and what it should mean. The modernistic literature revolves around themes of individuality, randomness of life, mistrust in the government and religion and disbelief in things that are true. Postmodernism is like modernists rejected the idea of truth and did not believe that there was a connection between the past and present and that the past events are irreverent to the present. In this essay I will discuss Sylvia

The woman wears a dress and her feet are bare. Her feet are tired from the long journey she has traveled. The theme of the poem is about Plath’s suicide as many of her poems are. The poem has a feeling of defeat. The woman’s “perfected” death is a seen of bravery not forwardness. Once again Plath creates a somber mood in the repetition of words that emphasize whiteness, blankness, and cold as in “bare”, ”white serpents”, ”milk” etc. There is also an allusion to the Greek goddess Medea, who avenged her husband’s betrayal by killing their children. This allusion creates bigger sense of suicidal feelings. The Greeks did not believe that suicide was a bad thing but rather they thought it was honorable. In many cases I believe that Plath saw her suicidal attempts as honorable that’s why she was documented it in her poems. The “Edge” like “Daddy” does not mean to please the reader but rather give the reader an understanding into the narrator’s feelings and thoughts. The poem can be seen as an act of hopelessness and detachment. There is no sense of pleasure but only in one instance when the woman smiles. When the woman smiles it implies a sense of triumph. In the lines “Each dead child coiled, a white serpent”….”She has folded them back into her body as petals” we can imply that Plath has considered in killing her own children in a family suicide. Never before she

In the short poem, “Child” Plath’s pieces as an example of her undeniable love for her children, and the inability of her to provide for her children, who stressed her a lot. Plath wrote the poem two weeks before she committed suicide and can be inferred that the poem is about her son Nicholas. This poem is an example of postmodernism because it talks about pregnancy and motherhood. In this poem Plath talked about her children as perfect and uncorrupted by society, the controversial topic of the postmodernist period, that society was corrupting the people. The first few lines of the poem seem to be happy. In the last couple lines the tone of the poem shifts. Plath does not see the world as perfect for her child. She realizes that life has many ups and downs and that there is continuous pain in growing up and being happy. We can also intrepid that she feels a bit of regret because of her child being in the same situation as her, without a father. It is surprising to see a different turn in Plath’s poem which makes me wonder, if Plath loved her child so much, why did she leave? She does not want to cause her child any pain but want the child to know what pain is. In a further look at the poem, there is a suggestion that she herself could be the cause of the pain for her child. She believes that maybe her own emotional instability may cause her child to have his own anxieties. The