How does Plath use imagery and symbolism to discuss the themes of life and death?

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English Coursework final draft

How does Plath use imagery and symbolism to discuss the themes of life and death?

Ms.F.Pow

Rebecca Lau

In the poems Tulips and The Stones, Plath uses symbols, metaphors and imagery to discuss her point of views of life and death. She thinks white is color of peace and death, while red it a color of life and excitement.

White symbolizes winter, which is also death and the state of Plath’s mind. The imagery “look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in” sketches the picture of winter where every thing is still, quiet, and calm. This picture reflects the state of Plath’s mind, stagnant. This is also one of the main reasons that Plath dislike the tulips, because the “tulips are too red”; they symbolize spring, and intrudes the “winter” of her mind. The tulips strive for their best to bloom, and that makes Plath feels shameful, since she has already given up trying. This shows that she doesn’t want to change her perspectives of desiring death more than life.

Peacefulness can be represented by the color white, or death. In the first half of Tulips, she said “I am learning peacefulness” in a place with “white walls”, “gulls”, and “white caps”. She doesn’t feel death as intimidating as it happens all around her everyday. She is in a hospital, and the hospital gives her peace, that is why she imagines white as the color of the path that will lead her to eternal peacefulness that she has desired. The tone of “I am learning” sounds like an innocent child, suggesting that she actually doesn’t fully understand what death is and what it means.  

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Life to Plath is like a never ending torture. She pictures herself as a “thirty-year old cargo boat” which “stubbornly (hangs) on to (her) name and address”. This long journey of life has “swabbed (her) clear of (her) loving associations” and is exhausting her, wearing her out. The imagery of the “old cargo boat” suggests that she has gone through a lot of problems and has to continue to even if her body cannot withstand it. She sees life as a very tough journey with continuous great storms and it can only be ended when the boat is broken, ...

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