Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Sylvia Plath's poetry
- REFLECTION
- into herself as a mother, lover,daughter,wife
- PERSONAL
EXPERIENCE
- vulnerability
- confessional poetry- private
trauma that can also be
representative of universal
human experience
- EXPLORATION OF THEMES
- STYLE AND VIEWPOINT
- LANGUAGE
- energetic, intense-(emotionally and
intellectually),forceful,
- IMAGERY
- nature, mirrors, darkness
and light(contrast)
- SOUND
- used by plath to convey
the experience
- 1.CHILD
- plath speaking about how
she wants to provide her
child with all the good
things in the world
- life she feels should be full of wonder and joy -
the child has not yet been tarnished by lies
experiences
- strong contrast in the last stanza - "pool in
which images should be grand and classical
..not this dark ceiling without a star
- 2.MIRROR
- describing the
pressure that
plath felt to look
good as a young
woman in the 60's
- the mirror is the speaker in
the poem and it speaks about
how true it is
- unlike candle light or the moon
- image of the
woman's youth
drowning in the
mirror as she visits
it everyday with
hands wringing
- reminds us of our
own mortality- time
passing
- 3.PHEASANT
- celebrates the
natural world i.e.
greatly contrasting
with many of her
poems
- plath is fascinated by the
pheasant and is trying to
justify why her husband
shouldn't kill it (TENSE)
- Plath feels as though she is the one
that is intruding on the pheasants
space - " i trespass stupidly"
- its uniqueness a
reason why it
should live
- becomes a source of
inspiration for plath as
she thinks about what it
would be like to have
hundreds of birds
- 4.POPPIES IN JULY
- written during a troublesome period of her
marriage in 1962- CONFESSIONAL account of
her own experiences without a filter
- the flowers take on a dark and
sinister quality which is
unexpected from the title
- plath describes the poppies as the
flames of hell and is dissapoiinted when
she finds out they cannot hurt her
- reference to blood - suggests
recent violence and suffering
- plath searches for the
opiates that poppies
produce to tranquillise her
and allow her to feel
unconscious
- dark , pessimistic ending
can be viewed as a cry
for help
- self destructive tendencies
- 5.THE ARRIVAL OF THE BEE BOX
- written in 1962 shortly after
her separation from
husband Ted Hughes
- DEEPLY personal poem that
explores order, power, control,
confinement and freedom
- CONTROL: I ordered this
- DANGER: the box is
locked it is dangerous
- claustrophobic feeling of being
inside the box "black on black,
angrily clambering"
- POWER: plath doubts her ability to control the bees " i am not a caesar"
- plaths father was a bee expert
and she and ted had recently
taken up bee keeping
- Awestruck by the
collective force of the
bees
- Image of death - reminding us of her dark
thoughts and deciding to let the bees free
- NOTE : poem can be read on another level
and the box could represent plath and all her
negative thoughts
- HER BODY is only temporary
in this case