Ariel Key Quotes Flashcards
‘ich, ich, ich, ich’
This repeated word creates the image of a juvenile child, stuttering whilst trying to form a logical sentence, suggesting her immature outlook concerning her father.
The epizeuxis creates a physically disconnected, angry tone, reflecting Plath’s emotional disconnection to her father, as she seems unable to fully express her feelings.
crowd shoves in to see them unwrap’
‘hand and foot’.
‘the big strip tease […] I may be skin and bone’
Plath’s use of metonymy and visceral imagery creates a sense of disassociation from her own body, suggesting that she is unable to fully embrace her liberation and femininity as she is constantly objectified and scrutinised.
‘red eye, the cauldron of the morning.’
Plath’s death wish is highlighted and the use of the homophone, ‘morning’, reinforces this concept.
It seems as though Plath is concluding that the only way for a woman to truly be freed from the struggle of societal conformity is to, inevitably, bring a complete end to her life.
This idea of internal, female conflict is further tainted by a more foreboding undertone, creating a lack of optimism for change.
‘old barnacled umbilicus’
This metaphorical imagery demonstrates Aurelia’s constrictive nature, signifying Plath’s dislike of these stereotypical roles that restricted women embracing their true selves, and instead, often resulted in them living vicariously through their children.
The consonance of the ‘c’ creates a bitter tone, suggesting Plath’s frustration under the control of her devoted mother.
Ironically, the idea of an ‘umbilicus’ connotes images of an umbilical cord; a physical, tender connection between a mother and child. Plath, however, seems to be yearning for liberation from these standard gender roles.
‘[w]ill you marry it, marry it, marry it’
The epizeuxis of ‘marry it’ is rather commodifying and emphasises the idea that women were simply expected to conform to the gender stereotype of a subservient, maternal housewife.
Plath subtly changes the sentence from an interrogative verb mood, suggesting a possibility for marriage, to an imperative verb mood, reinforcing the preordained nature of marriage and conformity to gender stereotypes for women during the 1960s.
‘stark naked’
‘suit – black and stiff, but not a bad fit.’
Monosyllabic sting to emphasise the restrictive nature of the male gender stereotypes that were accepted within 1960s society.
After WW2 men were expected to adhere to stereotypes that defined masculinity, such as being central to the household and providing for the wife and family.
The use of the phrase ‘not a bad fit’ demonstrates how it was seemingly more comfortable for men to conform to the gender stereotypes than women, but it was still unnatural and somewhat forceful.
‘may well be a Jew’
‘chuffing’ her ‘off like a Jew’.
‘Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.’
‘neat moustache’
‘Aryan eye, bright blue.’
Here, Plath aligns herself with the suffering of the Jewish community during the Holocaust, in a somewhat insensitive way. The onomatopoeic ‘chuffing’ alludes to the trains that transported vast numbers of Jews the concentration camps in Plath describes her father’s
This imagery alludes to the Nazi totalitarian leader, Adolf Hitler, and reinforces the idea of her father as a domineering figure.
The plosive alliteration of ‘bright blue’ creates an almost bitter tone, suggesting that Plath despises her father’s repressive nature.
‘one gray toe big as a Frisco seal and a head in the freakish Atlantic.’
By demonstrating his physical enormity; spanning from the west to the east coast of America, Plath shows how her father represented male authority stretched across the country in which she lived. Additionally, these lines extend over two stanzas, structurally reflecting his span of power.
‘husband and child’
‘smiles catch onto’
‘skin, little smiling hooks’.
Plath uses this ‘hook’ motif throughout many of her poems, including Ariel and Tulips, in order to highlight the restrictive, somewhat painful, nature of her familial relationships and the misogynistic society in which she is engulfed. Plath seems to be discovering a sense of tranquillity through her isolation, suggesting that she yearns to escape the emotional entanglement of her restraining role as a mother and wife.
As her horse ‘hauls’ her ‘through air’, Plath describes her ‘thighs, hair’ and compares herself to the ‘White Godiva’.
Plath’s reference to ‘hair’ and ‘thighs’ symbolise her expression of feminine sexuality, creating a unique tone as she defies societal norms. Furthermore, the metaphor of the ‘White Godiva’ alludes to Lady Godiva, who rode naked, with flowing hair, through the streets of Coventry in opposition her husband’s imposition of a repressive taxation system on society. This allusion demonstrates how she aims to embrace her feminine sexuality in order to rebel against male influence and societal expectations, a progressive concept during the 1960s.
‘face a featureless, fine Jew linen.’
The use of fricative alliteration emphasises Plath’s fears of being ignored or having her voice, as a woman, silenced. The Holocaust imagery, however, demonstrates Plath’s exploitation of the suffering of the Jewish people, deprived of their basic human rights. Plath continuously aims to reach female liberation herself, but ironically, here she seems to be holding oblivious, prejudiced views against those of another race, suggesting that she contributes, in some way, to the systemic anti – Semitism, preventing others from achieving liberation themselves.
