“Poets See the World through Eyes Different from Other People” - How far do you think this comment applies to the work of Sylvia Plath?
"Poets See the World through Eyes Different from Other People" Question: How far do you think this comment applies to the work of Sylvia Plath? Sylvia Plath was one of the leading poets of her time. She was born in Boston and later moved to England where she met and married a leading English poet Ted Hughes. Both her and Hughes were unhappy in their relationship. This lead Plath to become suicidal and paranoid, which reflected in her work. 'Lady Lazarus' was a poem all about her inner pain and frequent suicide attempts. In 1963 she was finally successful and took her own life. One of her many poems clearly illustrates the paranoia Plath felt and her inner pain as she visualises a pleasant task like blackberrying as a dark and twisted world where she is hunted by her enemies, men! Blackberrying Stansa One To open the play Plath uses the word 'nobody'. With one word she has set the scene as a lonely and destitute place. She reinforces this by describing the lane as 'nothing, nothing but blackberries'. This double negative helps to back up the emptiness, solitude and lack of purpose Plath feels in life. Plath tends to reinforce the topics she brings up and shows this as she continuously uses the word blackberries to give the reader a sense of their huge number. Plath uses alien metal objects such as 'hooks' and 'pewter'. This metallic theme is also reflected in some of
compare two poems Only the wall by Matthew Sweeney and Mirror by Sylvia Plath
I am going to compare two poems "Only the wall" by Matthew Sweeney and "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath. Both poems are similar as they both use personification. The poem "Only the wall" has the wall, which is personified as the wall is seeing what is happening, but cannot tell anyone. The poem "Mirror" has the mirror, which is personified, as the poem shows what the mirror sees. The poem mirror is about a mirror and a woman who is obsessed with the mirror. The mirror says it does not lie it just tells the truth. "I am not cruel only truthful" This tells you the mirror does not lie it shows the truth even though it might hurt and that it cannot judge how someone looks. In the second stanza the mirror begins to feel sorry for the woman. "I see her back and reflect it faithfully. She rewards me with tears and an agnation of the hands." This tells you how the mirror sees the woman's ugly face everyday and how the mirror sees the woman upset with the way she looks. The mirror is also upset, as it does not mean to upset her, but it can only show the truth. The mood of the poem is sad. "In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman rises towards her day after day, like a terrible fish." This tells how sad she is especially when she goes to the mirror and sees how her beauty has died away. The way the poem has been structured is the first stanza is about the mirror
A response to 'Daddy' and 'Digging'.
A response to 'Daddy' and 'Digging' by Michael Peel Many of us are inexplicably linked to our own fathers: emotionally tied in strange ways. 'Daddy' and 'Digging' account for the relationships between father and daughter, and father and son, but do so with impulsive desire, and longing understanding for something that may never be understood. A mysterious love attracts both Plath and Heaney to their own fathers, something that they both understand very well, in part, but which also mystifies them. For Plath, this manifests into an almost deranged, turbulent deluge of confused emotions that contradict her more open feelings of hate of her father. Heaney's contemplative mood reaches out to delve into a previously clouded attraction to the cold, physical robustness of his father that he feels he lacks with his well-to-do world of pen and paper. There is a marvellously rich sense of admiration for 'real work' in the field by hard-working men prepared to get their hands dirty and sweat in the sun. There is almost shame, in Heaney's poem for his own 'trade', as he remembers looking down upon his father from a high window, in a quite beautiful moment. There are obvious parallels. Both poems dig at certain preoccupations. Plath attempts to deal with newly surfacing emotions that oscillate between love and hate in the form of the scattered images of memory and fantasy. She
Sylvia Plath's
043 "Mirror" Essay AP English 12 Ms. Kaste Sylvia Plath's "Mirror" offers a unique perspective on the attitudes of aging. "Mirror" displays tremendous insight and objectivity into the natural human behavior of growing older. Plath is able to emphasize the loneliness, hope, despair, and insecurity that awaits us through mankind's incessant addiction with reflection. "Mirror" expresses the problems associated with aging through terse comparisons between reality and desire. Plathe's strength of "Mirror" lies in its ability to establish a solid comparison among appearance and human emotions between the first and second stanzas. At first "Mirror" introduces reflection as a precise and accurate force through utilizing the first person perspective of a mirror: "I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful.." (Plathe lines 1-4) This example can then be viewed symbolically of appearance especially concerning "love or dislike". In that people never hate nor adore their features but merely accept that what they see is what defines them. This faith is reinforced by the quality and type of reflection because it is originating from a mirror which is suppose to be exact, honest, and universal for all. Plathe understanding these principles describes the
Look again at "Mirror" in which Plath explores ways in which we see ourselves and others. Compare this poem with one other poem which also deals in some way with social interactions.
Look again at "Mirror" in which Plath explores ways in which we see ourselves and others. Compare this poem with one other poem which also deals in some way with social interactions. "Mirror" is a reflection of Plath's most inner feelings and her rather passive view on both her life and that of around her. The two stanzas in the poem reveal her need to find her real self and a compelling fear if being alone. She describes the mirror as an unambiguous, single dimension that absorbs everything around it and doesn't judge anything. She talks about it "meditating on the opposite wall", implying that it receives emotions and peacefully thinks and observes the world. She then uses another metaphor when she describes herself as a lake. The lake is a reflection of herself, but at a deeper level than perhaps the mirror was. She has distinct fears of aging and being alone. Plath talks from the point of view of a lake, therefore about herself, from the outside. She also represents her view of others by using a wall, candles and moons. "Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon", this is an illumination of being betrayed romantically. This makes the reader understand how she feels about the world and a strong element of sorrow comes across in the poem She has obviously suffered a great loss, from love. She describes tears as an indication of genuine emotion and great
My Grandmother By Elizabeth Jennings
MY GRANDMOTHER by Elizabeth Jennings Susanna Gray This is a poem about a memory. The poem describes the writer's grandmother and the grandmother's love for antiques and how she had previously had a antique shop, before having to give it up due to her age. The writer describes her emotion - guilt of how she wished she had gone out with her grandmother, and not been too afraid. The poem is descriptive. The first stanza captures the picture of the antique shop which the grandmother kept. We get the impression that the grandmother was rather lonely since antiques is all she seems to have. - perhaps because these antiques remind her of life when she was younger? The way the grandmother watches her own reflection in the brass suggests that she was lonely. ('She watched her own reflection in the brass Salvers and silver bowls') I think because she seemed lonely, it created a sensation of solitude and a strong feeling of emptiness. In the second stanza, the writer describes her guilt. She describes how she refused to go out with her grandmother. It's like she did not realise how the grandmother must have felt at the time - but as she looks back - she realises and feels the guilt. As a child - you don't realise how she might have been hurt by it, which makes the reader feel quite sad for the writer. In the Third Stanza, the atmosphere of old-loneliness is brought alive - by
Frozen Eyes -Explore and analyse the use of imagery of death and violence in Plaths poems
Frozen Eyes -Explore and analyse the use of imagery of death and violence in Plath's poems Frozen through her eyes, she senses a chilling blindness. As light penetrates through, the stimulation arouses intense anger, too powerful for human control. The anger reacts vigorously with her emotions, releasing pain and innocent tears. Similarly Plath's poems explore her vulnerability to pain. The eyes are emblematic of a medium that senses love, just as it senses light. Yet the blindness reveals her naivety and reluctance to accept emotions, as on the surface she remains strong, using violent imagery to defend herself. However on the underside the images of entrapment and suffering reveal her process of self-discovery and insecurity. Moreover the flippancy she also employs, gives access to another level of understanding. In Miller's words it is a 'fantasy of power reversal' that makes Plath so 'extreme'. Images of violence in 'Daddy' - of Nazis, swastikas, barbed wire, fascists, brutes, devils and vampires - are so frantic, imposing and bitterly abusive. Plath takes on a guttural tone, becoming a real challenger to the system of 'patriarchy'. It's almost as if though she spits each word, with arrogance and anger, paradoxically becoming the 'Fascist', that she has had to 'kill'. The power and impulsion, echoes in an uncontrollable form through the irregular enjambment. Yet each
Analysis of ‘The Highwayman’.
Analysis of 'The Highwayman'. This poem is called 'The Highwayman' and was written by Alfred Noyes. This particular poem is superb. This is because it engulfs lots of poetic skills and gets the reader to go through many emotions. 'The Highwayman' is a narrative poem because it is read by the reader and instead of one of the characters. I think this gives the characters an even spread throughout the poem. I would of thought that this poem is set in the 16th-17th centuries. I think this because the highwaymen were about in these centuries. The start of the poem consists of three metaphors. A metaphor is when two words are compared to one another without using the words as, like. The three metaphors are 'The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees' 'The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas' 'The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the p cloudy urple moor' I love these metaphors as they are so true.My favourite is 'The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas' as I have thought that in my head before when I have seen the moon. All these metaphors set off the poem interestingly. There are many characters in 'The Highwayman' who are all described differently. Obviously the main character is The Highwayman who is described as wearing: 'He had a cocked hat on his forehead' 'A coat of claret velvet and breeches of doe brown skin' This
Compare and contrast three short stories from the anthology
To compare and contrast three short stories from the anthology I am going to write about three short stories from the anthology which deals with the theme of relationship and loss; I will compare and contrast these three stories showing how the writer uses language and structure to convey these ideas. Firstly, out of the first three stories I chose, 'Flight' by Doris Lessing, it is about a grandfather who is reluctant to let go of his granddaughter. Secondly I chose 'Superman and Paula Brown's New Snow' Suit by Sylvia Plath, this story is an autobiographical account of Plath's childhood and how she is blamed for something she did not do. Lastly I chose 'Your Shoes' by Michèle Roberts; this story is about a mother who is upset because her daughter has run away All three stories have the theme of relationship and loss. In 'Flight' there is a relationship between the grandfather and his granddaughter and the loss of his granddaughter as she is getting married. In 'Superman and Paula Brown's New Snowsuit', Plath talks about her relationship with her uncle and mother and the loss of her child hood because of what happens with Paula Brown and what is happening around the world during the time of her childhood. In 'Your Shoes' the relationship is between the mother and her daughter, husband and her mother. The theme of loss in the story come from the daughter running away and the
How does Plath's use of extended metaphors and other literary features effect the reader's response to her poetry?
How does Plath's use of extended metaphors and other literary features effect the reader's response to her poetry? In this essay I will describe the literary techniques and the use of language used by Sylvia Plath in three of her poems Tulips, Mushrooms and Mirror. These poems are all extended metaphors for vanity and self-image, the stress of everyday life and the family and a metaphor for strength without violence. This technique of extended metaphors is a common literary tradition also used by other poets such as John Donne in "The Flea" and Emily Dickinson in "Funeral" and "Daffodils". Tulips is a calm peaceful poem written by Plath representing her experience when she was in hospital having an appendectomy operation. The overall message of the poem is that she prefers life in the hospital to her life as it allows her to shed her responsibility, it is peaceful and calm and it gives her security. Her family give her a bunch of tulips, which represent the outside world, which she despises. These tulips are used as an extended metaphor the strains of family life and the grief that it causes her. Emily Dickinson also uses this technique in the poem Daffodils, where spring is an extended metaphor for growth, life, vitality and vigour, which she despises. In 'Tulips' Plath describes two experiences; the effect that the hospital has on her and the effect the tulips have on