Contusion by Sylvia Plath Flashcards
1
Q
Context
A
- Written 1963, London.
- In the flat in Fitzroy Avenue weeks before Plath’s suicide.
2
Q
Form and Structure
A
- Tercets and terza rima structure produces a bleak, fatalistic effect.
- The brevity of the poem is most striking as if there is little left to say.
3
Q
Language Techniques
A
Imagery
- elemental imagery.
- Blood imagery/ water imagery/ stone imagery/ the sea all familiar images in Plath’s work.
Extended metaphor:
- of bruising/ wounding, “contusion”.
- bruises left by daddy, mummy, husband and of the tensions between the demands of being a mother/wife according to the conventions of the 1960s and a female writer in the world of men.
- the injured tissue of a bruise symbolising also the scars of depression and suicidal thoughts.