The next four stanzas of the poem are divided into two categories, each concerned with different subjects. These categories are determined by the sentence with which each stanza ends, which two of them end with, “” I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead”, while the other two ends with the line. “(I think I made you up inside my head)”. The former category contains the second and fourth stanzas, which are relating the extent of Plath’s power over the outside world, by describing what happens when she closes her eyes. The second stanza relates how “The stars go waltzing out in blue and red, / And arbitrary blackness gallops in”. And these phrases continue the first from first stanza that when the world dies, all the light in the universe, even that form stars vanishes into complete blackness.
The poem’s form, a villanelle, also supports the idea that Plath imposes a strict order and rhyme scheme to her words. The rhyme schemes are in all ABA for the first five stanzas, and the last one stanza has the scheme for ABAA. She utilizes her power to carefully structure the sound and language as she sees fit. The poem’s villanelle form is significant at the third stanza when Plath states her lover made her “Moon-struck” and “insane”, white she relates how she “forget[s] [his] name”, since the most mind numbing repetition of 2 recurring lines throughout the poem conveys the idea that Plath’s mental illness or madness. More over the fourth stanza draws attention to itself through extensive alliteration and consonance, as seen in phrases like “fires fade”, “drops dead” and “seraphim and Satan’s men.”
Plath uses repetitive rhythm in this poem. She uses 10 stresses and syllables per line throughout the whole poem. For instance “I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed”, on the other hand, this line does not follow the rule in punctuation, which in this whole poem there is a punctuation at the end of each line, except this one. The poem is punctuated in this way, “[;][.][.][,][:][.][.][.][:][:][.][,][.][.][;][.][.][.]” In addition there is another line that does not follow the rule, which is the line at the fourth stanza second line, “Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:”This line does not follow the 10 stresses of -/-/-/-/-/ in this order, and also it only has 9 syllables.
Sylvia Plath groups the images in 3 kinds of categories in this poem. The repetitive word dead is in the category of death, the word dead is repeated 4 times in this whole poem. Blackness, drops, hell, fires and Satan’s men are also in the category of death. In the group will be nature, there are stars, blue, red, thunderbird, spring, sky and fire. In addition, fire seems like a negative word to of all the words in the nature, therefore it is part of the nature in the environment. Despite the word that is related to death, there are also some words that is stand for love, which are kissed, loved and seraphim. In Plath’s style of images in this poem death and love words are written together to show she was loved once, which it turned out to be death because it might just be imagery.
In mad girl’s Lovesong, Plath uses negative and dark words to express her feelings of unrequited and devoid love. The word dead is used frequently which it symbolize the love poem is full of depression. Dead relates to blackness and hell, which is shown in the second stanza and fourth. The word choice of this poem tends to give the readers an imagery of the end of the world with the entire world drops dead, and hell of fires fade. The word “Waltzing” from the second stanza first line leads to connotations of dancing, and romance, although the next two lines continue the idea from the first stanza about the stars vanishing into blackness. Moreover this gives an imagery of turning from a heaven to hells just like the falling of god from the sky and fires of hells that is described in stanza four, this emphasizes that these is nothing in life, even religion to help stabilize her ad that for the world has become an empty black place full of uncertainty and devoid love.
Sylvia Plath’s “Mad Girl’s Lovesong” examines the interplay between broken love and insanity within a women’s mind resulting from her relationship with a lover. In particular, she believes that she has a power over the surrounding world, by simply opening or closing her eyes she could decide the fate of everything in the world. However, in the end she couldn’t face the idea that something in the world is not within her control, and chooses to believe that her lover is no more than a creation of her mind.
