Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
discuss the feministics view thst sylvia plath portrays in her poem
major theme in sylvia plath writing
major theme in sylvia plath writing
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The poem ‘Mushrooms’, by Sylvia Plath has multiple meanings within the one poem which can be deciphered differently to give altering views. Mushrooms is a poem made up of eleven short three line stanzas and has an underlying sense of gloom throughout the poem. The poem is written in a way that it can be interpreted differently and to different levels of complexity. The most obvious meaning is the conception and ‘birth’ of mushrooms which is described in detail throughout the poem. Looking deeper, the poem is relatable to the human conception of a child through to the birth and early life. The another, more complex, way to look at the novel is in the view of Sylvia Plath from a feminist view that was taking over during the time of the writing of the novel. Mushrooms has many ways of looking at it, in which each gives a varying story.
The primary meaning of the poem ‘Mushrooms’ is a story of the reproduction of the mushroom, from conception to birth. The mushrooms creation is described step by step throughout the poem, from its conception in the first stanza, to its ‘birth’ in stanza six. The conception of the mushroom is described as ‘whitely, discretely, very quietly’ by Plath which makes the poem feel very soft and gentle to the reader suggests that the conception is a very nice and peaceful thing. The poem continues on describing the mushroom in various stages of development and finally, in the last stanza, states that they shall ‘inherit the earth’ which suggests the unseen power of the spores that have been described in the first ten stanzas. The surface meaning of the poem is one of the growth of the mushroom and the power it holds.
Looking deeper into the poem, the mushroom is very relatable to a baby human and its creatio...
... middle of paper ...
...n and that their ‘foot is in the door’ and that they will fight all the way to equality. Looking at mushrooms with a feministic view shows though a very clear referencing by Sylvia Plath through out the stanzas of the poem.
In conclusion, Sylvia Plath’s poem, Mushrooms, can be interpreted differently to gain a different story. The poem in its most basic form is a story of the reproduction of a mushroom and the power that it will hold in the future. The mushroom is also relatable to a human baby in the way that Plath describes the mushroom vividly. Sylvia Plath also uses her writing as a more complex metaphor to express her own personal opinion on the feministic movement that was occurring at the time of the poems publishing. ‘Mushrooms’, a poem by Sylvia Plath is used to convey multiple stories to the reader through various metaphors she uses throughout the writing.
"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.
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.
Poetry is the wind for a trapped and wounded soul. A great example of a wounded soul is, Sylvia Plath. She was an immaculate poet, who expressed her personal troubles through writing. As Plath’s life smouldered into a heap of dust at the age of 30, her poetry grew and bloomed. In the years before her death, her most troubled period, Plath penned three of her most well-known poems, “Daddy”, “Lady Lazarus” and “Tulips”—all three illustrating the horrors of despair with strong, expressive literary devices. Plath, who committed suicide in 1963 at the age of 30, has been hailed ubiquitously as one of the most acclaimed and preeminent poets of the 21st century. Plath’s poetry was influenced by tragic events in her life and her prolonged battle against her deep depression and obsession with death. Plath’s personal issues made her the definition of a confessional poet. In the poems, “Daddy”, “Tulips”, and “Lady Lazarus”, Plath confesses her emotional and nervous breakdowns during her endless depression.
Plath’s difficulties with narrative prose contrasts between her novelistic dreams and her character. Plath’s passion for classic novelists and her own talent made her realize the fitting narrative prose were densely constructed (Hughes 1). Plath’s poetry goes through constant changes (Smith 2). The bee was a motif that was often used (Smith 3).Jerome Mazzaro considers Plath’s achievements in The Bell Jar to be less gendered. Mazzaro also believes Plath’s novel is a statement of fascination of the midcentury (“The Importance…” 2). Marilyn Yalom wrote in Maternity, Morality, and the Literature of Madness that Plath’s novel about her breakdown and her recovery, The Bell Jar, is a pre-feminist disclosure of the effects of the sexist culture. Yalom’s critical view increased from the feminist and psychoanalytic critic of the 1980s (“The Importance…” 1). Plath’s lyricism ranges from simple but effective to a Hopkinsian ode for her beloved (Magill 2223). Her best ability was turning everyday experiences into diary entries (Magill 2225). Plath’s poems from Ariel reflect her fury and sullenness toward life (Draper 2734).
Sylvia Plath’s novel, “The Bell Jar”, tells a story of a young woman’s descent into mental illness. Esther Greenwood, a 19 year old girl, struggles to find meaning within her life as she sees a distorted version of the world. In Plath’s novel, different elements and themes of symbolism are used to explain the mental downfall of the book’s main character and narrator such as cutting her off from others, forcing her to delve further into her own mind, and casting an air of negativity around her. Plath uses images of rotting fig trees and veils of mist to convey the desperation she feels when confronted with issues of her future. Esther Greenwood feels that she is trapped under a bell jar, which distorts her view of the world around her.
Sylvia Plath’s autobiography, The Bell Jar, tells the story of Plath’s own mental breakdown and suicide attempt, as well as her recovery and eventual reentrance into the outside world. The Bell Jar shows the transition of Plath as a young, hopeful girl into a cynical, suicidal woman. The main character whom represents Plath, Esther Greenwood, is first shown as an aspiring writer who is full of dreams and whose life is brimming with opportunities. As Esther becomes more and more depressed, Plath then shows a very different picture of a woman who has lost hope and no longer wishes to live. Plath conveys this deterioration through effective use of rhetorical devices such as imagery, alliteration, and point of view.
Atwood, Margaret. "Owl Song." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2015. [The poem is utilized to analyze and illustrate themes that can be juxtaposed to Sylvia Plath's poetry. In case themes, literary elements, and biographical elements are drawn together, then there is a commonality amongst eminent female writers. However, the use of the poems and comparisons is to find the underlying factor that traces these possible connections; in case it is not due to mental illness or embracement of death, then The Sylvia Plath Effect may be redrawn to a new possible hypothesis.]
Plath and Sexton's lifetimes spanned a period of remarkable change in the social role of women in America, and both are obviously feminist poets caught somewhere between the submissive pasts of their mothers and the liberated futures awaiting their daughters. With few established female poets to emulate, Plath and Sexton broke new ground with their intensely personal, confessional poetry. Their anger and frustration with female subjugation, as well as their agonizing personal struggles and triumphs appear undisguised in their works, but the fact that both Sexton and Plath committed suicide inevitably colors what the reader gleans from their poems. However, although their poems, such as Plath's "Daddy" and Sexton's "Little Girl, My String Bean, My Lovely Woman," deal with the authors' private experiences, they retain elements of universality; their language cuts through a layer of individual perspective to reach a current of raw emotion common to all human, but especially female, understanding.
Sylvia Plath’s jarring poem ‘Daddy’, is not only the exploration of her bitter and tumultuous relationship with her father, husband and perhaps the male species in general but is also a strong expression of resentment against the oppression of women by men and the violence and tyranny men can and have been held accountable for. Within the piece, the speaker creates a figurative image of her father by using metaphors to describe her relationship with him: “Not God but a Swastika” , he is a “… brute” , even likening him to leader of the Nazi Party; Adolf Hitler: “A man in black with a Meinkampf look .” Overall, the text is a telling recount of her hatred towards her father and her husband of “Seven years” and the tolling affect it has had on
Throughout the fourteen lines of the poem, the imagery of the blackberries, as well as the speaker's ardor for them is explored. In the final lines of the poem, the speaker reveals the connection between the imagery of the blackberries and the imagery that is created by words. The blackberries become the existing tangible reality of the way the speaker views words. The author savors the taste of the blackberries in his mouth in much the same way as he savors the sound of certain words on his tongue.
Plath does not come out clearly as a feminist in this poem, but she does express feelings that many women can relate to. She probably did not hate all men or blame them all for her pain, as some have suggested. She simply had to deal emotionally with her adulterous husband and absent father, so she uses this poem to curse the two as co-conspirators in her misery. Nowhere in the poem does Plath negatively group all men together. She does say in line 48 that "Every woman adores a Fascist," trying to explain her early admiration for her German father. But that is not a sarcastic stab at men, as it may seem. Rather, she is referring to a destructive reality: brutal men do tend to attract women, especially those women who are looking for a strong man to compen...
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 ...
Known for her distinctive voice and exploration of dark, violent emotions, Sylvia Plath was one of the most acclaimed poets of the twentieth century. In her poems she discusses many common themes such as family relations, marriage, self-image and death in unique ways. Among these topics, she expresses a particularly original perspective on motherhood and its effect on the individual that often deviates completely from the traditional view of child rearing. In her poems “Moonrise,” “Heavy Woman” and “Morning Song,” Plath conveys the idea that motherhood, although necessary, is a personal as well as physical sacrifice that involves much pain and suffering.
Through her dark and intense poetry, Sylvia Plath left an eternal mark on the literary community. Her personal struggles with depression, insecurities, and suicidal thoughts influenced her poetry and literary works. As a respected twentieth century writer, Sylvia Plath incorporated various literary techniques to intensify her writing. Her use of personification, metaphors, and allusions in her poems “Ariel,” “Lady Lazarus,” and “Edge”, exemplifies her talent as a poet and the influence her own troubled life had on her poetry.
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.