sylvia plath

A detailed Summary of sylvia plath


Sylvia Plaths poetry is well known for it's deeply personal and emotional subject matter. Suffering is one theme that is found throughout Plaths poetry. The later poetry of Plath portrays a negative image of both men and marriage. Most of the later poems show a woman who is trapped within a family situation or is trying to get away from one.

The feeling of being trapped is evident in the poem "The Jailor" This poem is a dramatization of female victimization. Plath was very unhappy in her marriage. This is evident in the "The Jailor" where she turns the hate for her husband into a negative representation of marriage in general. Plath is trying to get the message that "Marriage is a form of imprisonment," to the reader. The woman in this poem is suffering by the means of her husband behavior.

"The Jailor" (Plath 226) is made up of nine five-line stanzas, which present increasingly intense images of physical torture inflicted upong the speaker, by her "jailor." The prisoner/jailor relationship is comparable to the husband/wife relationship. The poem describes this womans suffering in the sleeping with her jailor and the sexual abuse he inflicts upon her. The central theme of this poem would be the "jailors" need for his victi


The poems "Fever 103º," "Lady Lazarus," and "The Couriers," are all linked by their "dominant fire imagery."(Roseblatt 110) All three of the women in these poems have the same pattern of moving from their familiar world into that of the unknown. Both "Fever 103º" and "Lady Lazarus" are brilliant forms of the dramatic monologue.(Plath 231) This type of writing provides for the speakers rapid shifts of perception and address. (Roseblatt 110) At the beginning of "Fever 103º" the speaker seems to be answering her own questions about self-purification through suffering. An example of this would be when she says to herself "Pure? What does it mean?" She then turns to her husband and says "I am too pure for you or anyone." Thus she answers her own self-purification question. The voice in this poem is serene, almost meditative which is completely opposite from the hysterically shrill voice used in "Lady Lazarus."

One author has called "The Couriers" ( Plath 247) the "most baffling poem within the poetry of Sylvia Plath." (Rosenblatt 108) The first three stanzas of this poem completely reject the idea of marriage, yet it seems as if the last three do the opposite. By reading the last three stanzas the reader is being

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Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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