Metaphors By Sylvia Plath Essay

Sylvia Plath was born in Massachusetts in October of 1932. She was and still is one of the most renowned writers of the twentieth century. She started producing poetry at the young age of eight. Her inspiring poems have awarded her with a Pulitzer Prize, which is a huge honor for any writer. “Metaphors”, which was written in 1959, is a poem with obvious, but hidden meaning. It is a very short poem, with only nine lines. She also uses only nine syllables in each line. A bunch of other subliminal messages can be found throughout this whole piece. The seemingly unrelated metaphors clearly describe her own pregnancy. Plath starts the poem off stating that she is “A riddle in nine syllables” (Line 1). The nine lines and the nine syllables correspond with the
nine months of a pregnancy. She begins to view herself as just “A means” (Line 7), a vessel for the baby to grow.
As the baby begins to get larger, she describes her stomach as “This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising” (Line 5); comparing the child to bread baking in an over. She sees herself as just a simple oven. When her stomach enlarges, Plath thinks of herself as “An elephant, a ponderous house” and “A melon strolling on two tendrils” (Lines 2-3). Her weight and size really seem to be a bother to her. She also mentions that she had eaten “a bag of green apples” (Line 8), which it is known that green apples are related to sourness and evil. After reading this poem several times, I find that there is very little joy in the words that she has expressed. Behind the humorous metaphors and comparisons, Plath is not happy about her pregnancy. Throughout the entire poem, there is one line that expresses some kind of brighter emotions— “O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!” (Line 4). This one random line expresses that she finds that there is at least something beautiful and valuable about the seed growing inside of her. Other than that one line, nothing else expresses joy of pregnancy in this poem. She is very well aware of the increase in her
size. The final ounce of bleakness is described in the last line, where she states that she has “’Boarded the train there’s no getting off.” Here, she implies that she is at the mercy of another.
She is trapped with this child, and there is nothing she can do about it. Back then, abortion was not a big ordeal. Nobody really performed it, and no one wanted it to be performed on. It was a very painful and experimental process. Plath expresses no feelings toward the baby in any manner. Her choice of imagery symbolizes her belief that she is simple just a means and a carrier. Nothing more, nothing less. For example, people think of elephants as invaluable when it does not come to their ivory. Also, a timber house is not valuable for itself, but for the family that lives inside of it. Green apples are related to sour feelings and evil. Plath states that “Money’s new-minted in this fat purse” (Line 6), but the meaning behind this statement is that a purse itself does not have much value, only the money that is inside is what people search for. I don’t really find this poem about her feelings surprising. She was struggling with mental issues and there was just so much pressure being put on her. Motherhood proved to be too much for her to handle.