Sylvia Plath poetry Flashcards
Blackberrying
“one bush of berries is so ripe it is a bush of flies”
Irony - the delicate balance between perfection and rottenness
Acute awareness of the thin line between being ‘correct’ and ‘wrong’ - eg in madness
Purdah
“My eye
Veil is
A concatenation of rainbows”
Concatenation refers to sequentality, thus emphasising the idea and role of tradition
The imagery of rainbows suggests that this tradition is natural phenomena yet also not (as rainbows are a bending of light – refraction – thus implying that this tradition is misinformed?
Purdah
“I breathe, and the mouth
Veil stirs its curtain”
Example of Plath’s information witholding/giving dynamic (manipulation of narrative voice) - stanza break after ‘mouth’ holds possibilities in suspension, suggesting the potential for the woman to speak
Also, the fact that she puts a woman as narrator of this poem is a narrative manipulation - although silent in real life she is given a medium of expression, and thus able to demonstrate the dynamic of control which she has even upon her highly restricted life
Purdah
‘I am his.
Even in his
Absence, I
Revolve in my
Sheath of impossibilities,’
‘I/ revolve’ – stanza break is a suspension of certainty, allowing the possibilitiy of her autonomous action to be considered (ending on I without a verb)
Purdah
“Attendants of the eyelash!
I shall unloose
One feather, like the peacock.
Attendants of the lip
I shall unloose
One note’
example of the dynamic/tension between dependence and self-assertion/rebellion - her announcement to the ‘attendants’ that she will ‘unloose’ appears an assertion of rebellion/autonomy, but equally the need that she feels to announce to her ‘attendants’ highlighs how much her subjectivity is founded upon their presence and the culutral rules which restrict her
Purdah
‘at his next step/ I shall unloose/
I shall unloose -
from the small jewelled
doll he guards like a heart
The lioness
The shriek in the bath
The cloak of holes.’
‘at his next step’ - dynamic between reliance and desire for autonomous self-assertion - she is relying on his actions to create her own, yet equally she is asserting her independence in being ‘unloose’ from his restrictions
Suicide as act of freedom- the bath
suspension of possibilities between ‘small jewelled/doll’
Guards LIKE a heart – image rather than physical appearance
Lady Lazarus
“I am your opus
I am your valuable
Demonstrates how, despite her subjection, the doctors require her too to enable their superiority - paradox of power vocalised [which applies to larger context than simply medicine[
Lady Lazarus
“There is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes”
Paradox of power - doctors reliance on her to be superiort
Ambivalence of word “charge” - could refer to her as a valuable, but also references ECG and the subjection faced as a result [emphasised by the repetition and qualification of ‘very large’]
Thus the noun ‘charge’ points to the dual direction of the relationship of power between doctor and patient - the dialectical dimension of human interactions and esp of power (Hegelian)
Daddy
‘and drunk my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know’
the qualification ‘if you want to know’’ demonstrates her narrative autonomy to give/withhold information at will, her mastery of storytelling as her source of power (or attempt to control the dynamic of power)
Daddy
‘and then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you’
Tension between subjection and assertion again applies -
her feeling of a need to be subordinated in order to define herself, but ironically this also places her in a position of power [cp Purdah]
‘Theres a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
‘You’ repetition - but does not say what they are ‘certain’ of - gives sense of a folklore story, and demonstrates the tendency and/or ability of narrative to omit information
Daddy
‘The black telephone’s off at the root’
‘Root’ – naturalistic image; ‘black’ is extra syllable thus breaking from the rhythm – what is the purpose of this?
‘a man in black with a meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do’
Self-mastery, but also irony that in this assertion she is also perpetuating her own suffering - the paradox of power vs self-assertion
Importance of stanza break
The Thin People
• “they are always with us, the thin people’
Of holocaust victims
Explores the interplay between their subordination and their necessary presence for dominator’s status to exist
Thus to some degree is empowering – assertion of their everpresence
