Snake and Medallion both have snakes in them but then they have very different plots in them as u can see in Snake it is about how DH Lawrence meets a snake and how he miss treats it by attacking it with a log. While in Medallion Sylvia Plath discovers a dead snake on her garden and she starts to look and seems to care for it and she is very sad, as the snake had not done anything to harm any one.
The poem Medallion is about how Sylvia finds a snake and she try’s to care for it but it is dead. Her feeling in this poem are mainly to do with sorrow as she is very upset that some one would even attack a snake with out it attacking or doing anything wrong in the poem. The language used in the poem is that she users a lot of colours in the poem to describe certain things like the snake and like the surrounding (The bronze snake lay in the sun.) Some of the other colours used in the poem are (Orange wood, tongue a rose coloured arrow and vermilion.) Sylvia found the snake in the garden and she makes out that the snake has not yet died and that it is only been hurt. She decides that she will exam the snake as she finds it in the sun (The bronze snake lay in the sun.) This when you first read this with out reading the rest of the poem makes you think that the snake is not dead and is actually is alive. When you realise it is dead she try’s to make the snake sound like it died in a battle so she says (Going under the chain mail.) Sylvia users some personification in the poem this is (Unhinged and his grin crooked.) Snakes do no have crooked grins and snakes do unhinge their jaws when eating but this is meant as if the snake is dead its jaws has no movement and just hangs down. In the last verse Sylvia users a Caesura were she disrupts the rytherm show she can show a more horrific and that she has made him a honourable soldier but we then find out how the snake was killed by the brick.
The connection between Medallion and The arrival of the Bee Box are that they both have cruelty in but one is from the gardener and the other is from Sylvia, as she cannot stand the bees noise that the make and this annoys her. She does not care for these bees, as they are not her responsibility.
The poem is about how Sylvia receives a box of bees and she does not no what to do with them (How can I let them out.) Her attitude towards the bees is that she is scared of them (I am not Caesar.) Here she is saying that she is not in charge of the bees and that she is not in charge of them. She cannot stand the bees as they make to much noise and this affects her and you can see this by when she says (It is the noise that appals me the most of all.) In the opening verse Sylvia try’s to deal with the box and this makes her think of death by seeing the small box (I would say it was the coffin of a midget.) Then she realises the mighty noise, which these bees make (Were there not such a din.) She thinks that the box is dangerous she feels it is a threat to her safety (The box is locked it is dangerous.) She seems to think that the bees may be claustrophobic as they are in small box and she says (There is only a little grid no exit.) Sylvia also users repetition to get other her point (It is dark dark.) She then says (Minute and shrunken for export.) The is to do with slavery as man black people were crammed into ship so that they could be exported to the new world, the bees are in a small box which is used for transporting them around. Sylvia also has a rhetorical question in the poem (How can I let them out) she does not want to let them out as she fells very scared of what they could do. She thinks that she can take charge of these bees by not feeding them (They can die, I need not feed them nothing I am the owner.) This now shows she is calling the bees her own while before she would not class them as her own. She now is in two minds if she should let them out and if they are hungry (I wonder how hungry they are.) Sylvia also users a metaphor in the poem this is (If I just undid the lock and stood back and turned into a tree.) She is saying that if she just undid the box door and if she stood there they would pay no attention to her. Then she says she cannot do that as trees blossom and that makes pollen (There is laburnum, its blond colonnades.) Sylvia then says that she is no source of honey so they will leave her a lone. She decides that it is not right leaving the bees in the box and she says (Tomorrow I will be sweat god, I will set them free.) She says that the box was only going to be a temporary place to store them.
The connection between the arrival of the Bee Box and Horses are that they are both scared of the animal but Sylvia learns to control her feeling at the end as she thinks that if she releasers them then she will be free. The reason why Edwin Muir is scared, as he is looking back at memories of when he was a child so now he is thinking why was I scared of these horses.
This poem is about how that when Edwin was a small child his parents owned a farm and he would watch the horses. The attitude of the poet in the poem is that he is scared of the as they frighten him as he says (They seemed terrible so wild and strange.) He starts of the poem by saying that he was staring out of the window of his home and how that he was watching the horses working on the fields (Those lumbering horses in the steady plough.) Edwin seems to fear the horses as he remembers the size of them when he was a small boy he says (They seemed so wild and so strange.) He thinks that he has returned to when he was a small boy by saying (Perhaps some childish hour has come again.) In the next verse he says when he would watch these horses they moved very slow with the plough behind them the quote for this is (Their hooves like pistons in an ancient mill.) Also another quote, which goes with this, is (Moves up and down yet seems standing still.) When you look at pistons all that they do is go up and down very fast but never look like they are moving forward just up and down just like the horses he saw. Edwin try’s to go on about how the horses are very dangerous and that they could be very dangerous by saying (Their conquering hooves which trod the stubble down.) He says (And their great bulk) so from his childhood view these are very large and now he is cannot see what is so scary about them. In the fifth verse he users many words to do with fire when he is describing the horses. He is again carrying on the theme about there mysterious and dangerous and he says (And warm and glowing with a mysterious fire.) He says that the horses have a fire inside them and that is why he users all these words to do with fire. He says that the look a lot larger at night (They came and they seemed gigantic in the gloom.) As children have very vivid imaginations this is why they would look a lot scarier at night than in daytime. Again to do with the power which these horses have he says there eyes (Gleamed with a cruel apocalyptic light.) Then near the end of the poem he says (Ah now it fades! It fades!) He users repetition to say that he is now come out of his dream of his youth spent on his family farm. Then in the last verse he says (Where the blank field and still standing tree.) He has visited the sight and that is all that is left of the farm.
My conclusion is that Snake and Medallion may both be about snakes but the writers have very different experiences with snakes. As when they both meet the snakes one is dead and the other is drinking. In Medallion the snake is treated like soldier that died in battle and in snake the snake is treated with respect and then is attacked by the writer with a log. The other two are about very different experiences with animals as in the arrival of the Bee Box the poet is scared by the bees and the same happens in Horses, as the writer in that is scared of the horses. The poem, which I liked the most, was the arrival of the Bee Box as it is about how that something new can be scary and ho that she decides at the end she can not keep the Bees in the Box and she will let them free.
