Compare the ways in which Plath uses imagery and description in Mirror and Blackberrying, and Heaney in Churning Day and Blackberry-Picking

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Compare the ways in which Plath uses imagery and description in Mirror and Blackberrying, and Heaney in Churning Day and Blackberry-Picking.

        Some of the most distinguished poetry to come out of this century has come from the works of Seamus Heaney and Sylvia Plath. In this essay I shall compare these two poets by studying two poems written by each of them and analysing the different ways upon which they use imagery. The two poems by Plath I shall study are Mirror and Blackberrying and the two by Heaney are entitled Blackberry-Picking and Churning Day. All four of these poems contain strong and powerful uses of imagery by both poets and this is why they have been chosen for this essay.

        Mirror is a very riddled poem full of double meanings in the imagery description. She begins by introducing the mirror, but not as an object but a being with its own feelings and mind. “I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.” She then goes on to emphasise this image in line three when she mixes the pronouns, now talking about the mirror as the objective “Just as it is unmisted by love or dislike.” but then in the next line returning to the first person perspective. This muddling of the pronouns injects the concept that she is the mirror or at least she says, “it is part of my heart”. . The third line also introduces the first double meaning to the poem, for where a mirror can be misted over by condensation and thus distorting the image, this cannot be done so by feelings.

        In the second verse the mirror is the reflection of a lake. There is still, however, the alternating of the pronouns as in the last verse. This verse talks more of the woman’s reflection that the lake is analysing. The woman is confused and by looking at herself in the lake tries to create some sort of recognition of herself.  The next line is a direct reference to Plath’s own life “Then she turns to those liars the candles of the moon.” In this the image of the candles as the stars metaphorically represent romance and love. The mirror sees them as liars because in Plath’s life the two men she gave her life to had left her (her father and husband) so now she has no faith in love and only in herself “I see her back and reflect her faithfully.” This is the pronoun muddling I talked about, for she is still standing by herself trustfully and does not need others, which is why the mirror is said to reflect her back faithfully. Despite this the idea of having no one still unhinges her “She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.” The image set here is one of loneliness and depression from the woman. There is no real scene set for nothing about the surroundings are mentioned it is only the coldness and pain of the woman’s heart which give the image. The end of the poem incorporates nicely the idea of the women with the ageing of the women “In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me and old women rises towards her day after day.” The verb drown portrays well the idea that the woman is helpless and suffering against the power of the lake and the rest of the world.

        From analysing this poem it seems clear that much of the images used are there in place of the emotions which Plath feels. She uses imagery here to put forward her own views on life ‘Then she turns to those liars, the candles of the moon.

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        Blackberrying is the second of Plath’s poems, which I shall be studying. It begins, again, rather dully and yet brings across more of a scenic image as opposed to the self analysis of Mirror. “Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries.” Obviously this opening line is trying to show a picture of large numbers of blackberries, but notice how she emphasises the negatives as though it is the fact that here are no forms of life around which she is enjoying and not the blackberries. The first image, which she writes of, is that of the size of the ...

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