Sylvia Plath

1. Sylvia Plath Poetry

3. Her Life Sylvia was born on October 27, 1932 in Newton, Massachusetts. She married Ted Hughes on June 16, 1956

5. Sylvia and Ted had two children Frieda and Nicholas (1960, 1962) 1962: She learned of Ted’s infidelity and they separated. She died tragically on February 11, 1963.

6. The Arrival of the Bee Box • In 1962, Plath & her husband decided to take up bee-keeping. • This poem describes the speaker’s unusual response to the arrival of a box of bees. • It is a poem that can also be read on a symbolic level.

7. The Arrival of the Bee Box • Poem opens in a straightforward, narrative-like manner: “I ordered this, this clean wood box”. • The simile that describes the box as being “square as a chair” is comfortably domestic, however, the metaphor that follow is strange & unsettling, “I would say it was the coffinof a midget/Or a square baby”. • This image is suggestive of death, giving the box a sinister/creepy quality.

8. The Arrival of the Bee Box • The speaker has an ambivalent (unsure) attitude towards the box, being both fascinated & frightened by it: “it is dangerous…And I can’t keep away from it”. • The description of the box suggests a sense of claustrophobia “There are no windows …/..no exit”.

9. Stanzas 1-2 Briefly describe the bee box in your own words. How would you describe the speaker’s initial reaction to the box? Is she surprised, delighted, worried? Why does the speaker describe the box as ‘dangerous’? Though the speaker thinks the box is ‘dangerous’, she is unable to ‘stay away from it’, why do you this is?

10. The Arrival of the Bee Box • This sense of claustrophobia is reinforced by the startling, surreal imagery that follows. • Peering in the little grid, the speaker senses the oppressive atmosphere within the box, underlining the sinister threatening atmosphere: “It is dark, dark…/Black on black” • A surreal image portrays the bees as “African slaves”

11. The Arrival of the Bee Box • It is the noise generated by the bees that most horrifies the speaker. • The simile that compares the bees to a Roman mob suggests that she is in awe but terrified of their collective power: “it is like a Roman mob”. • The description of their buzzing as “furious Latin” suggests their incomprehensible anger. It is beyond the poet’s understanding. • The speaker cannot control them: “I am not a Caesar”.

12. Stanza 3-4 Describe in your own words what the speaker sees when she puts her eye to the box’s grid? What most unusual image is used to describe the appearance of the bees inside the box? How can I let them out? Why do you think the speaker is reluctant to release the bees? Describe the speaker’s reaction to the sound coming from the bee box. What simile is used to describe this racket?

13. The Arrival of the Bee Box • The speaker shows her more compassionate side when she wonders how hungry the bees are. • Becoming more confident, she wonders what would happen if she simply released them: “I wonder if they would forget me/If I just undid the locks”. • There is a sharp contrast between the confinement of the box & the freedom of the natural world.

14. Stanza 5- 6 What does the speaker mean she is not Caesar? What options does she feel she has regarding this box that frightens her so much?

15. The Arrival of the Bee Box • By close of poem the speaker no longer feels threatened: “they might ignore me…/I am no source of honey”. • Feeling newly empowered the speaker decides to exercise her power in a positive way: “Tomorrow I will be sweet God, I will set them free/The box is only temporary”.

16. Stanzas 6-7 • What does she finally decide to do with the box? • The speaker declares that she will be ‘sweet God’. What does she mean by this?

17. Symbolism The bee box may be regarded as a symbol of the poet’s mind, and the angry threatening bees as symbols of the dark destructive aspects of her personality.

18. Key Points Key themes include power and control, repression and freedom. This poem is also open to a symbolic interpretation. It is a deeply personal poem- repeated use of ‘I’. There is use of startling imagery (stanzas 1 and 3) The poet also makes effective use of simile/metaphor.

19. Exam Questions (2003) (OL) Question 1 What impression of the poet, Sylvia Plath, do you get from reading this poem? What words or phrases from the poem especially help create that impression for you? (20)

20. Question 2 The following list of phrases suggests some of the poet’s attitudes to the bee box: • She is fascinated by it • She is annoyed by it • She feels she has great power over it Choose the phrase from the above list that is closet to you own reading of the poem. Explain your choice, supporting your view by reference to the words of the poem.

21. Sample Answers Read the sample answers to Question 1 and 2 on your hand-out ……..

22. Question 3 Imagine you were asked to select music to accompany a public reading of the poem. Describe the kind of music you would choose and explain your choice clearly.(10) ‘The box is only temporary’ What do you understand the last line of the poem to mean? (10) (Hint: the line has to do with an important choice faced by the poet)

23. Child: Before Reading Picture a young mother talking to her one-year-old son. What will she say to him? What will she talk to him about? What feelings will the mother and son share? Share your thoughts with your partner before reading this poem in which a mother speaks to her baby son.

24. Child • Plath expresses her love for her child while also revealing her inner torment. • Also portrays the dark depression that regularly engulfed (surrounded) the poet.

25. Child • Poet addresses her child in opening line, “Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing” – this implies that everything else in speaker’s world is some way tarnished – hinting at poet’s troubled mind. • Plath wants to give her child beautiful experiences – she wants to fill her eyes with “colour and ducks”. – also evokes child’s sense of innocence & wonder.

26. First Encounter …. The poet considers her child’s eye to be ‘the one absolutely beautiful thing’. What does she long to offer the child? Make reference to the poem.

27. Child • The closing stanza is contrastingly gloomy. • She worries about her child witnessing her emotional turmoil and being affected by her anxiety, “Not this troublous wringing of hands”. • The closing image is utterly bleak. “This dark ceiling without a star”. • The total darkness of the poet’s depression conveys a sense of oppression & confinement.

28. Child • The April snowdrop metaphor – child is representative of hope and new beginnings. (Spring) • “Little stalk without wrinkle” metaphor suggests child’s potential to grow & blossom.

29. A closer look! What sort of images does the poet consider appropriate for a young child? Do you think the ‘dark/ceiling without a star’ is a description of an actual room or a metaphor for the way the poet views her life? Do you think that the poet expects too much of herself as a parent? Is her view of childhood and what a child ought to receive realistic (truthful) or idealistic (idea of what reality should be).

30. Theme: Mental Suffering This is a short poem about a mother’s anguish. The poet longs to provide her child with beautiful experiences but is unable to do so because of her own struggle with despair and anguish. She ends up feeling guilty and inadequate as a parent, and the perfection she sees in her child only adds to her feelings of inadequacy.

31. Important References: Nature The flowers that the poet mentions are interesting ‘April snowdrop, Indian pipe’. The April snowdrop is particular beautiful (pure and white), while the Indian Pipe is less beautiful and is believed to exist in the darkened forest and feeds on decay. Perhaps Plath meant these flowers to represent the ‘child’ versus mother.

32. To Sum Up …. The poem deals with the poet’s love for her child and her own depression. The poet uses memorable imagery. She uses clear and simple language. There is a stark contrast between the joy and colour of the child’s world and the despair and darkness that has consumed the poet.

33. A Closer Reading How does the poet show a contrast between the world of the child and her own world? What is your personal response to this poem?

34. Sample Answer: What is your personal response to this poem? Child is one of the last poems Plath wrote before taking her own life and the poem showed me that she has lost confidence in herself as a mother. She believes she is unable to create the kind of joyful world she would like for her child. She wants to fill her child’s eye with ‘the zoo of the new’. In my opinion, this phrase brilliantly emphasises how simple and exciting life can be. However, Plath is unable to do this because she is filled with anguish and despair. She doesn’t want her child’s ‘clear eye’ to witness her pain. This feeling of helplessness made me feel very sad.

35. Sample Answer Continued …. The poet believes she is incapable of being a good mother. I think it is an unhappy poem that shows the love and desires of a mother for her child but how her failure to fill the child’s world with ‘colour and ducks’ adds to her gloom. Feeling guilty and inadequate as a parent the poet’s world has become a ‘dark ceiling without a star.’ While I found the poem quite upsetting, it helped me to understand the depression Plath was dealing with.

36. Helpful Starts! After reading the poem………. I believe the poet is trying to convey….. I believe the poet displays a…. It is clear from the poem……….. There is a stark contrast between…… I feel Plath is trying to highlight……. I think the poet is trying to suggest…..

37. Mirror I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.What ever you see I swallow immediatelyJust as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.I am not cruel, only truthful---The eye of a little god, four-cornered.Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so longI think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.Faces and darkness separate us over and over.Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,Searching my reaches for what she really is.Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.I am important to her. She comes and goes.Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old womanRises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

38. Mirror • “Mirror” gives voice to an inanimate object • It reflects on a number of different themes: • The inevitability of old age & death. • Preoccupation with image • A search for identity

39. Mirror Plath’s use of personification • Plath regularly uses inanimate objects with human qualities. • In this poem the mirror speaks for itself – describing its relationship with a particular woman.

40. Mirror Stanza 1 • The mirror expresses itself in a clear & direct manner - “I am silver and exact” • It reflects things exactly as they are. • It does not pre-judge – it has “no preconceptions”

41. Mirror • The mirror is cold and emotionless. • While a person may be dissatisfied or even upset by their mirror image, the mirror insists “I am not cruel, only truthful”.

42. Mirror • When the mirror states that it immediately swallows whatever it sees. We are reminded of the inexorable (can’t be stopped) passage of time. • The image captured by the mirror at a particular point in time will never be exactly the same again.

43. Mirror • The mirror describes how it spends its days meditating on the opposite wall. • The mirror has been reflecting this wall – “pink, with speckles” – for so long that it feels the wall is now part of itself. “I think it is a part of my heart”. • Only darkness and people “separate” the mirror from the wall.

44. Mirror Second section • This section is concerned with the mirror’s relationship with the woman on whose bedroom wall it hangs.

45. Mirror • The mirror declares, “Now I am a lake”. • The flat surface of a lake is reflective like a mirror. • However a lake has hidden depths, so this metaphor also has connotations of danger. • The woman searches the depths of the mirror/lake “for what she really is”. • The woman seems to be struggling to discover her identity and find her way in life

46. Mirror • The reference to “tears and an agitation of hands” points to the woman’s inner torment. • The fact that the mirror “is important to her” indicates her insecurity. • It would seem that she is deeply troubled by the ageing process

47. Mirror • Closing lines • They are particularly dramatic • The lake metaphor is developed, with the mirror/lake describing how the woman has “drowned a young girl” in its depths, while watching old age daily rise towards her “like a terrible fish”. • The closing image is startling and a little disturbing in its depiction of old age as an ugly monstrous creature waiting in the depths for us all

48. Themes: Mental Anguish Like many of Plath’s poems, this depicts mental turmoil. The woman in the poem is gripped by a fit of loneliness and despair as she examines herself in the mirror. We get a sense that much of this turmoil arises from the fact that she has lost her way in life and has lost her sense of identity. She gazes into the mirror attempting to locate and reconnect with her true self. “Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,/ Searching my reaches”

49. Themes: Mental Anguish Several of Plath’s poems touch on the idea of inadequacy and worthlessness. (Child, The Arrival of the Bee Box etc.) The speaker looks at her reflection in “tears” and turns away to the soft glow of candles as if she does not like what she sees. The woman seems deeply troubled by the prospect of ageing.

50. Personal Response Questions “Mirror” has been described as a poem of images. Pick out three different images from the poem. In each case state whether or not you think it is effective. The mirror claims it is “important” to the woman. In what ways might a mirror be important to an individual? Consider here psychological as well as purely practical reasons. What do you think the mirror means when it says “In me she has a drowned a young girl”? What does the “terrible fish” represent?