Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath, Exam Question.
The poetry of Sylvia Plath is intense and quite disturbing. Discuss
I agree with the statement that Sylvia Plath’s poems are filled with intense and disturbing thoughts. Plath’s poetry is intense, deeply personal and quite disturbing. Plath has a dark mind filled with doubts and demons of all shapes and sizes which provides rich imagery to draw from. The best poems to describe the disturbing experience are ‘Child’, ’Black Rook in Rainy Weather’, ‘Morning Song’, ’Mirror’ and ’The Times are Tidy’.
The poem ‘Child’ is exceptionally disturbing. This poem is very personal and although it is primarily a happy poem about her child there is an intense underlying sadness and emptiness. In this personal poem it is evident she loves her child very much and this is what makes it even more haunting and disturbing because she is so unstable and in a state of self-destruction “Your eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing”. This symbolises the mother’s anguish. Her anguish is intensified by her inability to give her child what she feels the child deserves. ‘I want to fill it with colour and ducks’, Plath wants to fill her child’s life with only beautiful things. Her failure to fill the child’s world with joy adds to her gloom, ‘ceiling without a star’. Plath is without hope as stars bring light but she only sees darkness. The repetition of broad vowels such as “dark” “troublous” and “star” create the gloomy atmosphere that I believe dominates this poem. The reader can just sense the pain and disappointment, feelings of failure and despair that the poet must be experiencing.
Another poem that is disturbing is ‘Black Rook in Rainy Weather’. The poem begins on a dull, bitter tone, ‘Hunches a wet black rook’. This introduction gives the reader an impression of the strong depression that is to come. Plath is without vision, without the inspiration to write and she fears ‘total neutrality’. Plath is in a state of desperation, she describes her life
The poetry of Sylvia Plath is intense and quite disturbing. Discuss
I agree with the statement that Sylvia Plath’s poems are filled with intense and disturbing thoughts. Plath’s poetry is intense, deeply personal and quite disturbing. Plath has a dark mind filled with doubts and demons of all shapes and sizes which provides rich imagery to draw from. The best poems to describe the disturbing experience are ‘Child’, ’Black Rook in Rainy Weather’, ‘Morning Song’, ’Mirror’ and ’The Times are Tidy’.
The poem ‘Child’ is exceptionally disturbing. This poem is very personal and although it is primarily a happy poem about her child there is an intense underlying sadness and emptiness. In this personal poem it is evident she loves her child very much and this is what makes it even more haunting and disturbing because she is so unstable and in a state of self-destruction “Your eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing”. This symbolises the mother’s anguish. Her anguish is intensified by her inability to give her child what she feels the child deserves. ‘I want to fill it with colour and ducks’, Plath wants to fill her child’s life with only beautiful things. Her failure to fill the child’s world with joy adds to her gloom, ‘ceiling without a star’. Plath is without hope as stars bring light but she only sees darkness. The repetition of broad vowels such as “dark” “troublous” and “star” create the gloomy atmosphere that I believe dominates this poem. The reader can just sense the pain and disappointment, feelings of failure and despair that the poet must be experiencing.
Another poem that is disturbing is ‘Black Rook in Rainy Weather’. The poem begins on a dull, bitter tone, ‘Hunches a wet black rook’. This introduction gives the reader an impression of the strong depression that is to come. Plath is without vision, without the inspiration to write and she fears ‘total neutrality’. Plath is in a state of desperation, she describes her life