Sylvia Plath Poem Comparison Essay

Sylvia Plath Poem Comparison Essay Saying Sylvia Plath was a impress char would be an under levelion. She was a dark poet, who attempted suicide many times, was hospitalized in a mental institution, was divorced with deuce children, and wrote confessional poetrys n archeozoic fetuses, reflection, duality, and a female posture on life. Putting her head in an oven and suffocating was probably the happiest moment in her life, considering she had wanted to die since her early twenties. However, one thing that was moderately consistent throughout her depressing rhyme would be the theme of the female billet.The poems selected for analysis and equality argon, A demeanor(1960),Youre(1960), Mirror (1961), The endurance of Shutting-Up (1962) and netly, philanthropy (1963). All atomic number 23 of these previously discussed poems have almost discipline of female perspective associated with them, and that commonality is the steering point of this essay. The first poem listed , A Life, was written in November 1960, and is a fairly long poem for Plaths standards. There are eight stanzas, and thirty five gets, and one over all(prenominal) heart.The general message of the poem is to discuss appearance and earth, and to compare them. Plath reiterates that appearance cannot be maintained, and she uses a mix of delicate wording in the beginning-to represent appearances- and transitions to aggressive diction when she moves back to reality. The female perspective is roughly prevalent when Plath starts the reality eccentric of the poem, and talks about a muliebrity, who seems to be hospitalized, and isolated like a fetus in a bottle. The idea of a troubled diligent seems to be a personal reflection on Plaths creation days. A Life begins delicately, and Plath uses phrases such as clear as a tear, or glasswill ping like a Chinese chime though nobody looks up or bothers to do to create a sort of fishbowl effect- a fragile, only isolated world, transpare nt and watched by others. Plath also uses water-like diction, like ocean waves, sea, and make up the darker word, dr holded to create such an effect. When the poem transitions back to reality, it seems like the previously mentioned fishbowl was just thrown into the violent ocean.Plath uses diction like surreptitious blitzkrieg, fetus in a bottle grief and elicit, and even age and terror to create the awkward, violent, and even disturbing reality that this woman in the poem lives in. Youre, written in 1960 during Plaths pregnancy, is a poem about Sylvias mollycoddle-to-be. There are two stanzas, each with nine lines, as to represent the nine months of pregnancy. The female perspective here couldnt be more obvious- a pregnant set out reflecting on her pregnancy and describing her child men cant take that experience. Youre is one of Plaths happier poems, and doesnt go very duncish as some of her other poems do.The first stanza is describing the unborn fetus as clownlike, moon-sk ulled and gilled. Visualizing a fetus with an underdeveloped head, upside-down and breathing in fluid constantly is explanation enough for this diction. Plath also discusses the nocturnal nature of babies, and the fold up of the bread-like creature growing inside her. The second stanza discusses the idea that a baby is looked for like mail, and that the fetus seems snug and jumpy. The most profound line in the entire poem is the last line, A clean slate, with your own face on, describing the babys soon-to-be new beginnings as a fresh start, a clean slate. Mirror written in 1961, is the quintessential of Plath poems, in that it verbalizees three of Plaths most common themes greatly in one depressing poem duality, reflection, and the female perspective. The female perspective in this poem is best expound as a troubled woman who constantly searches for the truth in reverberates, but finds no answers. The mirror discussed in the first stanza is exact and truthful, but almost pret entious, in that it considers itself almost godlike.The lake is where the woman seems to find the most comfort in, seeing the distorted images of her, the candles, and the moon. The last some lines seem to attribute her depression to her age, and maybe the fact that she never got to bonk her childhood, her young years, and she despises seeing herself grow old in the reflection of the lake. The Courage of Shutting-Up was written in 1962, a year before Sylvias end, and uses the ideas of repetition, speech, and censoring to express her ideas on female obedience and civil censorship.The female perspective here is the idea of not macrocosm able-bodied to enunciate out, and breathing in repetition, with a defeated tongue- hung up on the wall like a loot. The poem uses many different types of diction, but most of it is masculine, and war-like, as if Plath was fighting a war against men. The first stanza of the poem begins with The courage of the shut mouth, in spite of artillery a nd follows with bits of diction to describe a platter participant, with black disks of courage as to describe Plaths thoughts and feelings just per chance variableing over and over again, asking to be heard. The second stanza continues with the record player fiction, a needle in its groove, and transitions to an overqualified tattooist in the third stanza, at once a surgeon (maybe a metaphor for Sylvias downgrade from a great poet to a dumpy mother) who repeats the same overused tattoos over and over, silently, and solemnly. The fourth stanza returns to the metaphor of war, and artillery as well as the record player. The tongue is introduced, and is described as indefatigable, purple. The poem then questions if the tongue is dangerous, and if it must be buffet out.The answer to that question mustve been yes, because the tongue is then described as a trophy, hung up on the mantle like the fox heads, the otter heads, and the heads of exanimate rabbits before it. This is most li kely an extended metaphor of Plath being silence by her husband, and she can only admire her husbands trophy in defeat. The poem ends with an image of a forgotten country, whose pride and personnel is hidden and long gone- probably another metaphor for her power to speak out, taken a substance by her husband or simply by her gender- as women didnt have much say in things.The final poem Kindness was written in 1963, in the month of Plaths suicide, and shortly aft(prenominal) her husband left her. The poem is structured evenly four stanzas with five lines each. This poem contains the female perspective in that Plath mocks the usual ingest of kind-heartedness- almost satirically mother-like- and she also talks about children and how awful and almost helpless they are in the whole scheme of things. The poem starts out by stating how full of philanthropy her house is, and already hints that kindness is and illusion with the word smoke and mirrors shortly after one another, and th at these mirror are filled with smiles.The second stanza talks about the cry of a child, but not like a sobbing cry, but a sort of cry of agony, or desperation, and how that is the most real thing that she knows of, and that it is unlike the cry of a rabbit as, the cry of a child has a soul. This second stanza maybe hints at thoughts of Plath killing her children alongside herself, which is a somewhat disturbing thought. The poem continues, and with talk of kindness sweetly picking up the pieces. Plath also uses delicate diction like butterflies and Japanese silks to maybe express the delicacy of kindness. The poem ends, with a sort of final statement to her victimise husband, as presumably he comes in with an effort to console her, with a cup of tea, and Plath responds in another suicide like statement The blood jet is poetry, there is no stopping it. This is reminiscent of lettuce wrists, and that you cant stop the blood flow from a rend wrist. The final line seems to confir m that this poem was directed at her husband, with you deliberate me two children, two roses. When Plath says roses, it immediately brings forth images of flowers at a funeral, preferably than roses given as a token of love. Out of the entire selection, this is the most desperate and angry poem reviewed. Now, after the lengthy analyses of all five poems, all five had elements of the female perspective in them, some room or another. In A Life the female perspective was the view of the patient, feeling isolated and trapped in the painful reality that she lives in, and she takes shelter in the fragile fishbowl of a fantasy world she has constructed.In Youre, the female perspective is expressed in pregnancy. This experience is female exclusive, and Plath thirstily awaits the birth of her baby. In Mirror, the female perspective is that of a troubled woman who looks to the reflections of mirrors for answers, and prefers the distorted ripples of the lake to the awful truth of the wall mirror. Depressingly enough, even though the lake is distorted, the woman sees her age rising to meet her day after day, like a terrible fish. In The Courage of Shutting Up, the female perspective is that of a woman who is trapped by her repetitive household duties, and the limits on her expression by her husband. Obviously, not being able to speak you mind is a sort of mental imprisonment, and the only way out for Plath was her poems. This poem was the embodiment of those expressions. The female perspective in Kindness was some sort of suicidal anger against her former husband, and a sort of Medea-like want to kill her children to spite her former lover.She talks about kindness as a sort of facade put on by a woman to keep everything together in her household. In comparison to each other, Mirror, A Life, and The Courage of Shutting-Up are all female-minded grievances towards the society that Plath lives in, and the relationship that she is in with her husband. All three involve s ome sort of negative personal evaluation, as well as being dark and depressing. Kindness and Youre stand alone, in that Kindness is an extremely dark and angry poem directed at Sylvias husband, and Youre is a somewhat hopeful poem about pregnancy.They are direct opposites of each other and both represent different eras in Plaths life- one of pseudo-happiness, and one of hatred and despair. The female perspective in Plaths poems are unceasingly present, no matter what form they come in, or the period in Plaths life that they were written. Plath has always seen some fascination, some point to be make, in the gender differences of her generation, and she made sure to include the female perspective, which was often unheard, and made it heard.