Ted Hughes 'Sam' and Sylvia Plath's 'Whiteness I remember'
“Representations of any event, personality or situation are affected by the ways composers make selections, often resulting in conflicting perspectives”
Discuss this statement in reference to Ted Hughes ‘Sam’ and Sylvia Plath’s ‘Whiteness I Remember’.
Composers construct their own representations of events, personalities or situations; they manipulate the features of their texts in order to achieve a particular effect/impact on the responder. These constructions can be influenced by many factors and thus this leads to conflicting perspectives amongst texts. Ted Hughes poem ‘Sam’ and Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Whiteness I Remember’ demonstrate the way in which differing perspectives can lead to conflicting representations of similar events and personalities. Both composers creatively reflect on a key event that occurred in Sylvia’s life and portray conflicting perceptions of Sylvia herself and the meaning behind the ride that is intertwined throughout their work. Hughes and Plath are both influenced by differing factors, their representations are therefore contradictory to each other and thus this leads to conflicting responses from their audiences.
Sylvia Plath’s ‘Whiteness I Remember’ is a firsthand account of the first time she rode a horse and the exhilarating yet frightening experience that she had. Sylvia tells the facts of the ride and also attempts to recreate the sensation of how it felt physically and emotionally. Plath emphasises the idea that the horse, ‘Sam’, was chosen as he was normally very stable and suitable for first time riders, this idea is constructed through an accumulation of images and adjectives. For example, she emphasises his ordinariness when describing his history as ‘Humdrum, unexceptionable, his/ Tried sobriety hiring hum out to novices’. Sylvia also recreates the scene and the feelings she experienced via alliteration and simile, she states ‘First horse under me, high as the roofs,/ His neat trot pitching my tense poise up’. This
Discuss this statement in reference to Ted Hughes ‘Sam’ and Sylvia Plath’s ‘Whiteness I Remember’.
Composers construct their own representations of events, personalities or situations; they manipulate the features of their texts in order to achieve a particular effect/impact on the responder. These constructions can be influenced by many factors and thus this leads to conflicting perspectives amongst texts. Ted Hughes poem ‘Sam’ and Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Whiteness I Remember’ demonstrate the way in which differing perspectives can lead to conflicting representations of similar events and personalities. Both composers creatively reflect on a key event that occurred in Sylvia’s life and portray conflicting perceptions of Sylvia herself and the meaning behind the ride that is intertwined throughout their work. Hughes and Plath are both influenced by differing factors, their representations are therefore contradictory to each other and thus this leads to conflicting responses from their audiences.
Sylvia Plath’s ‘Whiteness I Remember’ is a firsthand account of the first time she rode a horse and the exhilarating yet frightening experience that she had. Sylvia tells the facts of the ride and also attempts to recreate the sensation of how it felt physically and emotionally. Plath emphasises the idea that the horse, ‘Sam’, was chosen as he was normally very stable and suitable for first time riders, this idea is constructed through an accumulation of images and adjectives. For example, she emphasises his ordinariness when describing his history as ‘Humdrum, unexceptionable, his/ Tried sobriety hiring hum out to novices’. Sylvia also recreates the scene and the feelings she experienced via alliteration and simile, she states ‘First horse under me, high as the roofs,/ His neat trot pitching my tense poise up’. This