Contusion by Sylvia Plath Flashcards

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1
Q

Context

A
  • Written 1963, London.

- In the flat in Fitzroy Avenue weeks before Plath’s suicide.

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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.
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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.
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