mod a Flashcards
resonance and dissonance
resonance: self-expression and selfhood
dissonance: sources of Plath’s pain (between father and Hughes)
major theme
Plath and Hughes use their poetry to gain a sense of agency over their psychological and social hyperconsciousness.
- Plath curates her dysfunctional relationships as way of reliving and retelling traumatic experiences to overcome them, a feature of Freudian psychoanalysis
- Hughes’ attempt at reestablishing his public image post-Ariel redefines his villainous representation during second-wave feminism
Appreciation
responders of the textual conversation grow to appreciate the discourse of subjectivity within their personal search for a sense of agency
Lady Lazarus (conversation with Fever)
Herein her search for a sense of agency, Plath’s Freudian psychotherapeutic process of reenacting trauma of the patriarchally oppressed assists her transcendence from mental anguish, while simultaneously illuminating the broader concerns regarding Cold-War influence on domestic gender roles.
Therefore, an audiences appreciation is enhanced by the discourse of subjectivity that shapes an audiences perspective of ‘truth’
The Shot (conversation with Lady Lazarus and Daddy)
Shaped by the unfavored opinion of second-wave feminism on Hughes’, there is a postmodern reframing of Plath’s confessional form to specify his subjective ‘truth’
Subsequently reaffirming Plath’s narrative as he strips her of textual control.
Offers stability to subjective opinions with the balance of his self-expression. (a resonance)
Confronting Parenthood (Daddy, Nick and the Candlestick and The Shot)
Plath’s perpetually dysfunctional families converge between her disappointment for her father and her hyper responsibility as a single mother within the popularised Cold-War expectations for a nuclear family, consistently alienated from conventional family structures.
Hughes discounts responsibility of patriarchal oppression to paternal failure, redefining his ‘truth’
Exhibition in Lady Lazarus
Bear witness to the “peanut-crunching crowds”, Plath is subjected to a range of different interpreters she is exhibited to.
- she is forced to undergo immolation to truly find her own identity that she has the ability to control, thus displaying her search for a sense of agency
- titillating imagery
- metaphoric to the nakedness of her body and her psyche, Plath is on exhibition
- allusion to vaudeville theatre, appeasing her viewers
Plath’s part of “the big strip tease”
- continues this seductive connotation
- theatrical
- contradicts the value of privacy and exposure during the Cold-War period
Transcendence in Lady Lazarus
As Plath “melts to a shriek” she indicates her sensory and painful emotional release
- recurring burning connotating resonating between Hughes and Plath’s poetry.
Plath shares the perspective of her trauma as she recreates her psyche, using her confessionalism to preface it as her own personal narrative
As Hughes names himself the “stone man” and Plath “the burning woman” he establishes an understanding of her personal narrative by embellishing her metaphor through “stone” as a means of contrasting their characters.
- this alludes to Plath’s immolation process and redefines his villainous presence as he offers nurturing support through offering “soup”
- antithesis between pain (“fire”) and numbness (“stone”) suggests incompatibility
- epistolary form is less subjective and provides balance to Plath’s highly emotional writing
Logical Reasoning in The Shot
Hughes laments his mishandling of his relationship as he is “tossing you, cooling, from one hand to the other”
- metaphorically displays accountability for his flaws, doing so to regain agency over the public opinion that had been diminished
As he “managed a wisp of your hair, your watch, your nightgown”, Hughes metaphorically alludes to Lady Lazarus as he lists the fragments of her being like they are the relics of God’s martyr’s.
- this supposes a divine connection to the fragmented self that resonate between Plath and Hughes
- reinforces fatalistic correspondence to Plath’a death
Victimisation in The Shot
As a “high velocity bullet”, Hughes depiction of fatalism reframes the narrative of transcendence over trauma that Plath details in Lady Lazarus and her immolation
- metaphoric representation of Plath as a bullet, is piercing and dangerous, where as Plath “ricocheted”, she causes damage to the external victims of her transcendent journey.
- resonating with the violent imagery of Plath
Later suggesting that Plath’s “real target hid behind me”, Hughes demonstrates that he was the target of her journey from transcendence over trauma as a means of blocking Plath’s issues with her own father
- conversation with Daddy to deflect the personal and public narrative prefaced on his role as a villain
- epistolary form doesn’t incorporate overly emotive language as a means of sharing his subjective view without exaggerating information, gaining trust in audiences and regaining control over the narrative
Maternal Responsibility
The transition from childhood to parenthood is present in Plath’s involvement as both the child and the mother to a broken familial relationship.
Addressing her father as “you do not do”, Plath incorporates her form of the electra complex to reinstate this relevance of Freudian psychoanalysis into her poems
- this infantilises her persona
Demonstrating Plath’s son as “the baby in the barn”, she religiously alludes to the Christian image of Jesus to end Nick and the Candlestick as a sense of progression from trauma to bliss
- there are connotations of brightness and hope, ironically deconstructed after her suicide, sharing the complexities of a subjective experience
Confronting Father
With constant religious allusions resonating between Ariel and Birthday Letters, Hughes refers to Plath as a “god-seeker” and “god-finder” as a motif to embolden the perspective of Plath’s electra complex with Daddy and the paternal reference to “god”.
- this acts as a euphemism of her fathers power as the face of the patriarchy.
- this journey invigorates audiences to appreciate the growth of reliving her experiences, a key feature of Freudian psychoanalysis in the ability to overcome psychological trauma
- As a means of reestablishing power, Hughes establishes this Freudian connotation as a means of sickening the portrayal of Plath’s psychological thought to the public audience, redefining the experiences that only Plath and her father had shared between each other
- He says this out of reach to their true relationship as Plath’s father died when she was 8
