Sylvia Plath - Lesbos

INTRO

Lesbos is a poem by Sylvia Plath written in 1962, after her divorce with her then husband Ted Hughes. The poem was written in response to her ex-husband’s affair with Assia Wevill. Through the use of emotive language, metaphors and imagery, Sylvia Plath shows negative feelings towards the mistress and thereby portrays the mistress in a negative light. These devices, as well as portraying the mistress negatively, also show a contrast between Plath’s home-life and the mistress’ illicit relationship with Ted Hughes, Plath’s then husband.

FIRST ARGUMENT

Sylvia Plath utilises emotive language in Lesbos in order to portray the mistress in a negative light and to display her hate of her. By portraying the mistress’ life as hell,

“The smog of cooking, the smog of hell

Floats our heads, two venemous opposites,” (Lines 35-36)

Sylvia Plath intends to voice to the reader that the mistress’ life is hell for Plath. By utilising a high modality word like “hell” Plath intends to insist that the mistress is a bad person. By using “venomous” to describe the difference between Plath and the mistress, Plath immediately implies that the mistress is dangerous and has a bad influence on anything she encounters.

Furthermore, Plath utilises emotive language to portray the mistress as not having her priorities straight, thereby insisting that the mistress doesn’t care about her children and only about Plath’s husband,

“I am packing the babies,

I am packing the sick cats.

O vase of acid,

It is love you are full of. You know who you hate.” (Lines 69-72)

By insisting that the only “love” that the mistress holds is romantic and contrasting it to Plath taking care of “babies [and]... sick cats” Plath portrays the mistress as not having love for her children, and only for her husband, thereby portraying the mistress negatively for not loving children. Furthermore, by portraying the mistress as “acid”, Plath further emphasises her intention of portraying the mistress as dangerous and a bad influence.

Lastly, Plath goes on to display the mistress’ life as fake, and then goes on to say that the life the mistress is leading will only lead to her demise,

“I see your cute decor

Close on you like the fist of a baby

Or an anemone, that sea” (Lines 84-86)

By utilising “cute”, Plath immediately alludes to a child, whose life is often quite fake, copying others. This thereby portrays the mistress’ life as fake and not containing much meaning, as it would for a child. Furthermore, Plath also portrays the mistress as materialistic, by insisting ...

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Lastly, Plath goes on to display the mistress’ life as fake, and then goes on to say that the life the mistress is leading will only lead to her demise,

“I see your cute decor

Close on you like the fist of a baby

Or an anemone, that sea” (Lines 84-86)

“decor” is all that is important to her.

Emotive language is used in Lesbos to portray the mistress in Plath’s life as dangerous as well as generally displaying her in a negative light.

SECOND ARGUMENT

Sylvia Plath utilises metaphors in order to portray the mistress in a negative light. By portraying the mistress as a sickness,

“It is all Hollywood, windowless,

The fluorescent light wincing on and off like a terrible migraine” (Lines 3-4)

By portraying the mistress as “Hollywood”, Plath intends to portray the mistress as superficial and materialistic, thereby essentially demeaning her. This is further emphasised when she portrays the mistress as “windowless”, where Plath essentially portrays the mistress as very discreet and very secretive, which is further demeaning towards her. Furthermore, by portraying the mistress as a “migraine”, Plath wants to portray the mistress as a sickness and causing harm to people.

Metaphors are also utilised to contrast Plath’s and the mistress’ life, “I am packing the hard potatoes like good clothes,” (Line 68) By portraying her own life as practical by using words like “good”, the metaphor of the practicality of potatoes emphasises Plath’s opinion that her life is much better than the mistress’, thereby debasing the mistress and portraying her in a negative light.

By portraying the mistress as a non-human object, Plath further degrades the mistress, “Every day you fill him with soul-stuff, like a pitcher.” (Line 76) furthermore, by saying that she is filling her husband with “soul stuff”, Plath wishes to say that the mistress is essentially poisoning her husband’s mind, and leading further astray from his normal life with her. By portraying the mistress as a “pitcher”, Plath intends to remove her status of being human, which alludes to her portraying her as an animal. Furthermore, by portraying the mistress as a household item, Plath alludes to the home-life that she has and the illicit life that the mistress lead.

Third Argument

Sylvia Plath utilises imagery to portray the mistress in a negative light and thereby demeaning her. By providing imagery of brothels and prostitution,

“Once you were beautiful.

In New York, in Hollywood, the men said: ‘Through?

Gee baby, you are rare.’” (Lines 40-42)

Plath intends to portray the mistress as a prostitute. By portraying the mistress as “rare”, Plath alludes to the mistress’ sexual relationship with Plath’s husband, and thereby intends to emphasise that the husband did commit infidelity against Plath. By inferring to her husband, Plath also debases him. By portraying the mistress as “once [...] beautiful” Plath also intends to display the mistress as ugly, which is thereby insulting her and portraying her in a negative light.

Imagery is also used in Lesbos to contrast Plath’s life and the mistress’, thereby insinuating that Plath’s life would have been better for the husband.

“I should wear tiger pants, I should have an affair.

[...]

Meanwhile there's a stink of fat and baby crap.” (Lines 30 & 33)

By suggesting that the mistress wore “tiger pants” while she had the affair with Plath’s husband, Plath suggests that the mistress and the husband had a very intimate sexual relationship, due to tigers often being an animal associated with sexual relationships. “Tiger” also gives the mistress inhumane characteristics, thereby demeaning her and emphasising Plath’s hate of the mistress. This image of the mistress and Plath’s husband having a sexual relationship contrasts with Plath taking care of her children by suggesting that while the husband and the mistress were together, Plath was the one taking care of the babies and doing all the “work”, while her husband was having an intimate sexual relationship with the mistress.

Lastly, imagery is utilised in Lesbos to portray the mistress as inhumane,

“You are so exhausted.

Your voice my ear-ring,

flapping and sucking, blood-loving bat.” (Lines 77-79)

By portraying the mistress’ voice as an “ear-ring”, Plath suggests that the memory of the mistress and her husband will always be with her and that it has hurt her, which implies that the mistress is dangerous and harmful. Furthermore, by suggesting that the mistress is “sucking” it implies that it is making Plath “exhausted” and that the illicit relationship is hurting her. “Sucking” is also combined with “blood-loving bat” to essentially portray the mistress as a blood-sucking bat, which is an allusion to Vampires and other fantasy creatures, which don’t exist. By portraying the mistress as a Vampire, Plath essentially makes her unworthy of humanity, which therefore demeans the mistress and portrays her in a highly negative light.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the use of emotive languages, metaphors as well as imagery all contribute to Plath’s intention of portraying the mistress in a highly negative light and emphasising her hate of her. Emotive language is mainly used in Lesbos to say that the mistress’ life is not right and what she does is not right, in contrast to Plath’s. Metaphors are used to degrade the mistress and give her inhumane characteristics; it is also used to portray the mistress as a prostitute. Lastly, imagery is vastly utilised in Lesbos to contrast the mistress’ life of infidelity to Plath’s life of taking care of children and doing motherly things, as well as giving the mistress inhumane characteristics and making her unworthy of humanity, which thereby insults and demeans her. All of these devices emphasise Sylvia Plath’s hate of the mistress and essentially give’s Plath a chance to voice her opinions regarding illicit relationship and extra-marital affairs.