“Sylvia Plath uses powerful metaphors and vivid, disturbing imagery to express a range of emotions, both positive and negative, in her poems.”
Do you agree with this statement? Support your answer with relevant evidence from the poetry of Sylvia Plath.
Sylvia Plath is recognised worldwide for her poetry that often creates disturbing, vivid imagery for her readers. I completely agree that she uses powerful metaphors and vivid, disturbing imagery to express a range of both positive and negative emotions. I am going to discuss this statement with reference to ‘Poppies in July’, ‘The Arrival of the Beebox’, and ‘Child’.
‘Poppies in July’ is a disturbing poem that transforms an idyllic English countryside into a shocking representation of how she longs to feel either pain or oblivion. The opening line, ‘little poppies, little hell flames’, uses a brilliant metaphor to compare the poppies to tongues of flames. Unfortunately for her, ‘nothing burns’. Using a disturbing simile, she compares the flowers ‘wrinkly and clear red petals to the ‘skin of a mouth/ a mouth just bloodied.’ This brings to mind a very unsettling image of Plath after a violent episode. She goes on to express her longing for the poppies ‘opiates or nauseous capsules’, in order for her to enter a state of oblivion. She decides that all she wants is to either ‘bleed or sleep’, further emphasising her need for death or pain in order to take away the numbness she is feeling. ‘If my mouth could marry a hurt like that’, implies that she wants her husband (marry) to hurt her. It appears she gets a masochistic pleasure from the pain. However it is clear that all she wants is peace from her mental anguish, to be placed in a ‘glass capsule’, and enter a state where she needs not to think. Her final lines conjure up a clear picture of the world through her eyes, ‘colourless, colourless’. It is clear that Plath uses unsettling imagery to express negative, painful emotions in ‘Poppies in July’.
Another poem that uses a range of metaphors and imagery to depict pain, fear and resolve is the ‘The Arrival of the Beebox’. This poem, in a metaphorical sense, is a representation of her mind and the confinements within it. In the opening lines we see Plath take responsibility for the box, perhaps trying to prove she has control over her thoughts, ‘I ordered this, this clean wood box’. In an attempt at humour, she refers to the box as a ‘coffin of a midget or a square baby’, however this instead to me, is a disturbing idea.
She’s confident it is not a coffin however as there is an uncomfortable ‘din’ coming from it. We see Plath go from powerful to powerless in three words, ‘it is dangerous’. From that moment on, we see Plath lose control and contemplate what she can do to regain it. Plath is frustrated that she can’t see into the ‘dark, dark’, grid, however she is grateful that there is ‘no exit’, for the bees or her menacing thoughts. Using a powerful, horrifying metaphor, Plath compares her thoughts to African slaves who have been shipped in small tight spaces to other countries. ‘A swarmy feeling of African hands/ minute and shrunk for export / black on black, angrily clambering.’ We get a vivid image of her thoughts congested in her mind, leaving her no room to think. In another striking metaphor, she compares her thoughts to a ‘Roman mob’, ‘small taken one by one’, however when the voices inside are trying to all talk at once, ‘the noise appals’ her. Everything is mashed together into ‘unintelligible syllables’, she is unable to decipher. She has no power now and she comes to terms with the fact that she is ‘not a Caesar’. Just like it took a powerful ruler to control the mobs, it will take a strong beekeeper to regain control of the bees. Similarly to ‘Poppies in July’, she contemplates entering a state devoid of human traits and wonders what would happen if she ‘stood back and turned into a tree’. This brings to mind Daphne, a mythical creature who begged for help from the gods and was turned into a tree. In her final lines she evokes a positive image of her taking power from the bees, she decides to be merciful ‘tomorrow I will be set God, I will set them free’. However the last line, ‘the box is only temporary’, suggests that just like the bee box, our lives are also only temporary. This is a valid, realistic thought, however, taking account of the fact that Plath took her own life, it evokes a sense of despair and hopelessness in the reader. Throughout this poem Plath uses clear, predominantly disturbing imagery to express pain and a sense of powerlessness.
In contrast to the ‘Arrival of the Beebox’, Plath expresses a good balance of happy and dark emotions in ‘Child’. The first verse opens with, ‘Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.’ This statement shows the love Plath has for her child, a baby who is ‘clear’, and unsullied by the problems of the ugly world. Using a lovely metaphor, Plath expresses her desire to show her child all the wonders and experiences that will excite and bring her child happiness, ‘ a zoo of new’. This poem contrasts the mother Plath wants to be and what kind of mother she thinks she will be. In the second verse her thoughts begin to grow dark. She uses another significant metaphor to compare her child to an ‘April Snowdrop’, white, pure and beautiful, while she herself is an ‘Indian Pipe’, a flower that feeds off other flowers’ nutrients. Is she trying to say that she will drain any goodness or happiness from her child? It is clear that this is her thought process whenever she uses another striking metaphor to compare her child to a ‘pool in which images should be grand and classical.’ The child should reflect a mother who is happy, one who is able to create a stable harmonious home for her child. Instead, this child reflects its mother’s ‘troublous wringing of hands’. The last line brings to thought the notion, yet again of oblivion, however, it is particularly chilling as we know that this is one of the last poems Plath wrote before her suicide: ‘this dark ceiling without a star’. This gives us the impression that she has no hope left and the only way she can see through this mental anguish is by taking her own life.
In conclusion, there is no doubt that Plath uses a range of disturbing, vivid imagery and powerful metaphors to evoke pain, anguish and in some very rare cases love in the poems discussed above.