and she recalls the purity of white to describing the setting as "it is winter here" (1), and she
notices "how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in" (2). The images of the winter
season provide a sense of purity to the speaker. The winter season is known for its abundance
of snow, which camouflages other colors, and the purity of the white hues consumes the
landscape. Lying in a hospital bed alone, the speaker observes the calmness of how "the light
lies on these white walls" (4). With the absence of color surrounding her, the speaker reflects,
"I am a nun now, I have never been so pure" (28). Recovering in the hospital room, the
speaker begins to feel an unimagined state of purity from her pale, colorless surroundings. The
world of the hospital ward is a welcomed one of snowy whiteness and silence, in which I
believe the woman grasps eagerly at the ability to relax completely because nothing is required
of her. She has moved beyond normal activity, and relishes the opportunity to relinquish all
responsibility, to become a 'body' with no personal identity.
The speaker detests the maternal responsibilities awaiting her after she recovers. While she
loses consciousness of the world around her and slowly finds peace in letting go, she remarks,
"Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage" (18). After that outburst, the speaker gazes at
her "patent leather overnight case" (19), and sees her "husband and child smiling out of a family
photo" (20). Yet, the picture of her family does not invoke happiness and remembrance of the
ones that love and depend upon her. Iinstead, the speaker glances at the picture. and declares,
"Their smiles catch only my skin, little smiling hooks" (21). I feel the speaker considers her
family to be baggage and hates the fact she will have to return to her motherly duties to her
children and her husband.
The speaker slowly loses her identity while being a patient in the hospital. Lying quietly in a
hospital bed, the speaker realizes, "I am nobody." (5) Reflecting over her situation, she
concludes, "I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses/ and my history to the
anesthetist and my body to the surgeons." (6) The speaker's clothes, a symbol of her identity,
are given to the nurses. Her clothes are then replaced with a standard issued gown that is worn
by all patients. This act of uniformity erodes the speaker's individuality. In addition, the speaker
is also given anesthesia that keeps her temporarily unaware from her own personal history and
life. In the hands of a surgeon, the speaker is identical to the other patients. She is unable to
stand out as an individual to the surgeon, and herself, because she no longer wears her day
clothes and cannot recall her own history. Recovering from surgery, nurses further impede the
awareness of the speaker as she recalls, "They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they
bring me sleep." (17) Even after the surgery, the speaker's identity is weakened as the nurses
take away her pain. Plath compares the nurses and herself as "my body is a pebble to them,
they tend it as water tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently." (15)
The red tulips are a sad and painful reminder that the speaker will certainly return to the burdens
of everyday life. These red flowers are disturbing to the speaker because "they are too red in
the first place, they hurt me."(36) In a room of uncolored walls, the red tulips contaminate the
purity of the room by having its red color. The speaker also believes that the tulips are too
excitable and a nuisance to her space and new found peace. She is even convinced that "I
could hear them breathe/ Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby." (37-38)
Not only are the tulips invading the speaker's purity and space, these flowers are demanding
attention from the speaker reminiscent of her own children. Her simile between the flowers and
“an awful baby” gives the reader more understanding into her otherwise insane hatred for a
simple flower. The tulips break her peaceful state, like an awful baby would break the sleep of
his or her parents by crying in the middle of the night. The tulips represent the obligations of life,
similar to the overnight case, and they both serve as reminder of a previous life. The burden of
life is further idealized by the tulips as the speaker reflects, "They weigh me down, a dozen red
lead sinkers around my neck." (40-42) The speaker "didn't want any flowers" (29) or the
troubles that plague her life. She seeks life without its burdens and growing pains as the speaker
pleads, "They hurt me." (36) In one final act of desperation the speaker concludes, "The vivid
tulips eat my oxygen." (49) Similar to her reluctance of returning to her family and her former
role, the speaker sees the tulips as a threat to her life.
Plath conveys the message that she only wants tranquility or removal, from the realities of the
world, and as she recovers from her surgery she declares, "I am learning peacefulness, lying by
myself quietly." (3) Never before has the speaker been able to experience absolute calmness.
Family obligations and other responsibilities inhibit the speaker from ever enjoying a peace such
as her current one in the hospital room. "I only wanted to lie with my hands turned up and
utterly empty," (29) protests the speaker of her wishes and she concludes, "How free it is, you
have no idea how free-the peacefulness is so big it dazes you." (31-32) The speaker compares
her current experience with peace as "what the dead close on, finally, I imagine them/ Shutting
their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet" (34-35). Her peace is so tranquil, barren, within
the white walls of the hospital room. pure and absent from the realities of life, the speaker
relates this similar sensation with those that are near death. These vivid images of a sad woman
bring this poem to life so that the reader can almost feel the torment this woman is facing.
Understanding the themes of purity, the reluctance of maternal responsibilities, the process of
losing personal identity, and the quest for inner peace of the speaker enhance the appreciation
and understanding of Plath's Tulips. After the speaker curses the tulips for disturbing her
peaceful state of mind, she resigns and complains, "Before they came the air was calm enough,
coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss." (50-51) These tulips are a reminder that
soon enough the speaker's life will continue as it once had before the surgery. The speaker now
knows that one state of emotions, conditions, and the concept of true purity can never exist in
her world. Yet she does learn that peace is achievable, no matter her obligations and the
speaker will once again revisit this peaceful state.
