The Colossus by Sylvia Plath

Question 1

Subject

Answer 1

• This poem expresses the poet’s sorrow after the death of her father through the image of a statue.
• The speaker is a caretaker to this statue, and at times expresses feelings of exasperation towards the statue, and she links this relationship between her and the statue to that of her and her deceased father.

Question 2

Context

Answer 2

• Written in 1959
• Plath and Hughes had moved from Massachusetts back to England.
• Plath fell pregnant with Freida in June of that year, she was later born in April.

Question 3

Form and Structure

Answer 3

• Six stanza poem written in quintains.

- Written in free verse

Question 4

Language Techniques

Answer 4

-Extended metaphor of statue and its destruction is a metaphor for a woman grieving the loss of her father.
-Enjambment,
“Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles
Proceed from your great lips.”
-Imagery,
“Counting the red stars and those of plum colour.
The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue.”
-Alliteration,
“Scaling little ladders with glue pots and pails of lysol”
The speaker mocks the statue
-Death-like imagery,
“To mend the immense skull plates and clear
The bald, white tumuli of your eyes.”

Question 5

Mood

Answer 5

At the beginning of the poem, the speaker almost seems to resent the statue, creating a bitter mood, however as the poem continues the mood shifts as the speaker is coming from a place of admiration, before eventually becoming more disheartening.