Sylvia Plath, in the poems, Daddy and Lady Lazarus displays the different relationships of a woman in her life, with various men, such as father and husband, in order for the poems to have universal significance.
Confessional Poetry Do these poems have universal significance? Explain Sylvia Plath is one of the famous poet, who writes confessional poetry by incorporating her traumatic experiences in her poem. Her poems, such as "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus", which explore the women's relationships with men in general without any additions of any specific cultural values, therefore, the poems provide a universal definition and universal significance. Also the poems display the need for women to liberate themselves from repressive, which also has universal significance. Sylvia Plath, in the poems, "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus" displays the different relationships of a woman in her life, with various men, such as father and husband, in order for the poems to have universal significance. She uses metaphors and symbolism to shows the different types of relationships, women share with different men and how they impact their lives. An example of this is seen in "Daddy", where she writes "Every woman adores a Fascist", which display women as victims of men. Though the use of this metaphor, it is symbolised that women are the victims of Nazi men and they are presented as willing victims, therefore raising the question of how much women's victimisation is their fault. Similarly, "Lady Lazarus" conveys the message of death, resurrection and defeating enemies, as seen through the use of, "Out of the
Critical appreciation of the poem "Old Ladies' Home" by Sylvia Plath with reference to the presentation of old age
Dealing with old age and loneliness can be both complicated and perplexing. Sylvia Plath shows us this through her poem "Old Ladies' Home, where she shares her views on the harsh reality of growing into old age and awaiting death alone. In this poem, the omniscient speaker employs a detached tone to describe the old ladies in the home as fragile, lifeless and neglected. The poem takes place in a home for aged women, as can be inferred from the title of the poem and contains several images and metaphors that bring out the poem's main theme of death. Several symbols are used to represent death in this poem. A few such examples would be "black fabric", "ghosts" and "coffins". These symbols present death as dull and eerie, rather than as the celebration of a life well lived, hence building a sombre and gloomy atmosphere in the poem. This in turn reflects the old ladies' melancholic state as they await their death in the home. Death, for these old women, is also presented as being unpredictable and as an issue that lingers in their mind every night. For example, the last stanza of the poem says, "And Death, that bald-head buzzard, / Stalls in halls where the lamp wick/ Shortens with each breath drawn." Metaphor is used here to compare death to the buzzard which is a scavenging bird, similar to the vulture. Death is described as something that lurks within the home, waiting for
Sylvia Plath's presentation of parent-child relationships
Sylvia Plaths presentation of parent-child relationships Plath deals with the themes she chooses to write about, such as death, suicide and depression, in a very interesting fashion. However, out of all her themes, the one that is the most interesting is her presentation of relationships between parents and children. The way in which she deals with this theme is very different to her other poetry. She breaks many of the rules that were laid down by poets before her, such as the romantics. These series of poets stressed the idea of family and the importance of parents to children and vice versa. As a result, the vast majority of poets that wrote about these relationships thereafter presented them in a very idealistic manner, implying family harmony and lack of conflict. Therefore, when Plath started to write about family relationships in a decidedly unromantic and disturbing style, some were shocked. Instead of her poems being about the healthiness of relationships between parents and children, they are about the darker, less talked about side. It is mainly due to this difference between her and some previous presentations of parent-child relationships that makes her poetry tackling the subject interesting. As with most of Plath's other material, her method of dealing with this theme is by no means straightforward. This is shown in the fact that there are two types of
Sylvia Plath,
A commentary of "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath "Daddy", one of Plaths most famous and detailed autobiographical poems, was written in the last years of her life and is saturated with suppressed anger and dark imagery. The sixteen stanza poem, through Plaths use of ambiguous symbolism, arguably is bitterly addressing Plaths father, who died when she was only eight, and her husband Ted Hughes, who had broken her "pretty red heart in two" (st.12, line 1). The poem is intense with once suppressed emotion, setting an aggressive, desperate, almost psychic tone and is highly concentrated on the theme of death. With Plath's application of various techniques including diction, imagery, enjambment, contrast, repetition and oxymoron, the poem comes across as shocking with the intensity of feeling and the passionate sadness that highlight the suicidal messages conveyed. As is pointed out, the context of the poem "Daddy" is that of Plath's husband's affair with another woman. Grieved to the point of psychotic anger Plath's use of imagery throughout the piece accentuates the hopeless despair of the speaker at the conflicting male relationships in Plath's life: first her father and then husband. "Any more, black shoe In which I have lived like a foot..." The metaphor of 'black shoe' possibly used to denote a person, suggests a stifling image. The speaker claims to have lived in that shoe,
Blackberrying by Sylvia Plath.
Blackberrying by Sylvia Plath Within the poem "Blackberrying" by Sylvia Plath, she positions herself as the lonely walker and speaker, self-consciously communicating with and reacting to nature yet all the while assuming that at her worst this may cause her immediate surroundings to justifiably consume her (by the overwhelming sea ) and that at best her surroundings are malciously indifferent. The theme of "Blackberrying," on the surface at least , is of "place." Aside from this theme of "place" and some regularity of structure there are other panoramic factors in this poem. Most striking is the underlying sense of threat and the images of willing death which are anticipated. Plath uses imagery, metaphor, simile and other many elements of poetry in this poem. The imagery is used mostly in the poem to stimulate our senses and recall our imaginations and experiences. The progress of the walk in "Blackberrying" does not describe the journey's outset, yet there is a defined middle and end. There is a definitive purpose namely to relish in and gather blackberries. The three nine-line stanzas within the work fulfil three detached purposes-the first to describe the berries and the luscious sensations experienced in their harvest; the second to define the environment and to point to failings which can exist when the berries' become overdeveloped;
Investigation Into The Theme of Entrapment in The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Investigation Into The Theme of Entrapment in The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1932 to Austrian parents. She studied at the prestigious Smith College with a scholarship and in 1955 she went to Cambridge University where she met and later married Ted Hughes. Plaths life was one of success, and intense ambition and perfectionism. In an early journal entry, aged 16, she described herself as 'The girl who would be God'. Her desire to be a perfect writer and a perfect woman is set however in her understanding of the constraints placed on women in the 50's. The early death of her father when she was just 8, and the combination of fear and adoration she felt towards him had an immense and lasting effect on her life, and subsequently he appears as a major theme in both her poetry and prose works. The Bell Jar was first released in England in 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. It received lukewarm reviews with most critics highlighting the personal yet detached voice of novel. An anonymous review stated 'it read so much like the truth that it is hard to disassociate her from Esther Greenwood, the 'I' of the story, but she had the gift of being able to feel and yet to watch herself: she can feel the desolation and yet relate this to the landscape of everyday life'. This shows how the novel was seen to be autobiographical
Analyse the poem "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath
Analyse the poem "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath The title "Daddy" evokes images of nurturing fathers, willing to do anything for their children; it suggests innocence and protection. Plath could be using this in a number of different ways. It may be ironic - she uses this word to describe her father because he should have been a model for her, and he was the precise opposite of her ideals. It also suggests a longing for her father to have been this model. It may relate to the feminist issues at the time Plath wrote "Daddy" - fathers were all believed to be a perfect model for society, and women and daughters who were victims of them were mostly ignored. The repetition of "you do not do" gives the persona an assertive edge; she is standing up to her father. It also makes her sound a little immature, as though she has to express herself in this way. Indeed, the syntax throughout the poem is stilted, with little complicated vocabulary, giving the persona a childlike quality. Plath writes that she "lived like a foot" in the "shoe" of her father. It implies that her father, as the "shoe", surrounded her. It could suggest that she could not escape him, and she "wore" him - he was a burden to her. She also writes that in her father's presence, she is "barely daring to breath" - she is terrified of him. This ties in with the shoe point made earlier - her father seems a tyrant, overbearing
Spinster- A Commentary
Spinster- A Commentary Spinster is a poem which juxtaposes the order and disorder of the seasons and how exactly this affects the persona's desperation to keep control. The title 'Spinster' implies that the persona has a chosen a life without men, which also implies that she wants full control over her life. Stanza one begins very formally, 'During a ceremonious April walk/ With her latest suitor'. Lexis such as 'ceremonious' and 'suitor' creates a very formal atmosphere, therefore creating more structure, which is also implied by the use of the word 'suitor', which suggests very little or no feeling towards him. The stanza continues to imply that the woman can hardly stand disorder, 'intolerably struck/ By the birds irregular babel/ And the leaves litter'. The poet uses alliteration and positive alliteration to suggest that the woman can not handle disorder with words such as 'irregular' and 'litter'. Then, in stanza two, Plath stays detached from the poem, and the whole stanza implies disorder. 'Observed' suggests that the woman in the poem was watching from a distance, and therefore the writing is very detached and as if a step has been taken back in order to see things as a whole. Also, the whole stanza implies disorder with lexis such as 'unbalanced', 'uneven', 'wilderness' and 'disarray', all of which suggest disarray and no order. Almost all of these words are
In the poem 'A Poem should not mean but be' the poet causes the reader to question themselves over how they read a poem, how they see it.
Poem appreciation - A Poem should not mean but be In the poem 'A Poem should not mean but be' the poet causes the reader to question themselves over how they read a poem, how they see it. 'A Poem should not mean but be' the Poet here from the title is saying a poem should not be looked upon by people as just words on paper, seeing them as empty and meaningless, but experience the feeling and emotion that has been expressed in poems. A poem is a verbal composition designed to convey experiences, ideas, or emotions in a vivid and imaginative way, characterized by the use of language chosen for its sound and suggestive power and by the use of literary techniques such as meter, metaphor, and rhyme. This is what the Poet is trying to get across to the reader of this poem 'Does it work when the word happiness is pronounced?' here right from the start of the poem the Poet asks the question 'Does it work when the word happiness is pronounced?' he is putting this question to the audience forcing them to think does it make it happen?, does it bring it to life?, happiness?. In this quote from the poem the Poet is asking the reader are they really feeling the feeling and emotion which is being expressed in poems when they read them rather than just seeing the words. 'Never is the happiness because orgasm and orgasm are worlds apart', in this quote from the Poet it shows him
Sylvia Plath; The Imperfect Perfectionist.
Sylvia Plath; The Imperfect Perfectionist Sylvia Plath's poetry is an expression of "a personal and despairing grief". She had the gift of recreating her own past experiences in a complex form, so as to remove them from her present, that it started to seem like an obsession. Within this obsession her poems show a regular pattern of self-centeredness. It was this characteristic that lead her far from any "self-discovery" and "self-definition", and drove her to her death, "an art" as she words it. Plath readily exploits her emotions through the personified language to build a sinister and super-natural atmosphere, in attempt of creating a "valiantly unremitting campaign against the black hole of depression and suicide". However, her attempts went to waste when she committed suicide in the February of 1963. Plath's poetry enables the reader to unravel and look deep into her victimised mind. It was for this talent that she had received much praise, but much more criticism. Plath's poetry mirrors the life of Plath, and to make sense of her poetry it is important to try and have an understanding of Plath, to see things through her perspective. This is what most critics' lack, and so I have taken a step to try and understand her. It is for this reason I will take into consideration the perspective of psychoanalysts to aid me in my understanding of her, in particular the theories
