Tone in Sylvia Plath Poem

Saying Sylvia Plath was a troubled woman would be an understatement. She was a dark poet, who attempted suicide many times, was hospitalized in a mental institution, was divorced with two children, and wrote confessional poems about fetuses, reflection, duality, and a female perspective 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 somewhat consistent throughout her depressing poetry would be the theme of the female perspective. The poems selected for analysis and comparison are, ”A Life”(1960),”You’re”(1960), “Mirror” (1961), “The Courage of Shutting-Up” (1962) and

The poet’s tone changes as we move throughout the poem. The poem starts out with the poet declaring that his love for his mistress is limitless and will stand the test of time. “My vegetable love should grow / Vaster than empires and more slow.” Suddenly, the poet’s tone seems to takes on a sense of urgency. He contradicts his previous beliefs about time, as he now believes time is running out and will prohibit him from loving his mistress forever or ever loving her at all. “Times winged chariot hurrying near; / And yonder all before us lie / Deserts of vast eternity.” He now sees time as a looming death that will prohibit him from loving his mistress indefinitely. Considering that time is of the essence, the author’s attitude suggest

What is the difference between sympathy and empathy? Sympathy is purely able to feel for another's distress, while empathy is more about able to put oneself into a situation. However, I believe that Sympathy is more powerful as one most likely already experienced the problem, while Empathy focuses on more imaginary feeling.

The second stanza shows that there’s no emotion reflected to the character’s mood when everything is blank in the mirror.

In 1963 on a cold winter day of February 11th, Sylvia Plath ended her life. She had plugged up her kitchen, sealing up the cracks in doors and windows before she was found with her head inside of her gas oven inhaling the dangerous fumes. She was only thirty years old, a young woman with two small children and an estranged ex-husband. A tragic detail of her life is that this is the second time she had tried to commit suicide. Plagued with mental illness her whole life, which is evident within her poetry. She would write gripping, honest portrayals of mental illnesses. Especially within Ariel, the last poetry book she wrote, right before she took her life. Although it’s hard to find a proper diagnosis for Sylvia Plath, it is almost definite that she at least had clinical depression with her numerous suicide attempts and stays in mental hospitals undergoing electroshock therapy. Sylvia Plath is now famously known for her writing and the more tragic parts of her life. Such as the separation from her husband, Ted Hughes, mental illness, etc… Plath may not have intended for her life and art to become inspiration to many people but that has become the end result. Sylvia Plath writing shows symptoms of her suicidal thoughts. To study specific moments in Sylvia Plath’s life, it can be connected to certain writing’s of her’s, such as “Daddy”, The Bell Jar, and “Lady Lazarus”.

Sylvia Plath was an American Poet who was renowned for poetry mostly in the United States. She, however lived a difficult and depressing life which led to a few futile suicide attempts, but ultimately led to a successful suicide attempt leaving her children to live on without a mother. This end result was due to a multitude of issues in her life from Sylvia’s sanity. She wasn’t the most stable child. Her marriage also played a role in her suicide. Her successes weren’t acclaimed until after her death, when a majority of her work was released. There were two major aspects to her life: her poetry and her sanity. These three combined make up a majority of Sylvia’s life.

Plath uses an intriguing personification to start off her poem as the mirror speaks as a human saying “I am a silver” and “I have no preconception”. A first person narrator as if the mirror is an object that express thing from an honest observation. The stanza demonstrates the goal of the mirror from the way it described itself. The objectivity of the mirror is even more accentuated in the second line when the poet writes “whatever I see I swallow immediately”. (Plath 2) Human qualities are also given to the mirror when it says “on the opposite wall, it is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long I think it is part of my

In this reflective essay, Stewart discusses the struggles her and her family went through. He family has faced a lot of struggles and throughout all these struggle a mirror was there to see it all. The essay starts off when Stewart is arguing with her mother then blinded by anger she broke the family mirror. It all started with her great-grandmother Elsie when she lost her husband in a tragic fire. The mirror was the only thing left in this fire. Elsie passed this mirror on to her daughter Ruby.

From the beginning to the end this poem contains many symbols, water being one of the first to appear. It is first described as unmisted, acting as a reflecting surface on the mirror. In the end, water takes on the position of being a lake, reflecting the girl’s image, no matter the occasion. Water acts as both clear and containing in the poem, showing the girl’s image and hiding the youth that she once had. Not only does water act as a symbol but light, as well. In the poem, it says darkness separates us over and over. Darkness symbolizes the thoughts and feelings the young woman feels, how they cloud her thoughts and opinions of herself. The final, and perhaps greatest symbolize is the reflections themselves. The reflections show the importance of appearance to the woman in the poem, and reveal the inner thoughts she has, how frustrated she feels when her reflection doesn’t meet her expectations. The reflections symbolize not only her outer appearance, but her inner as well. This poem embodies the feelings and thoughts many woman have had, looking in the mirror and not

Metaphors Analysis in Sylvia Plath's Poem In Sylvia Plath’s poem, Metaphors, she uses striking imagery to explore her ambivalent attitudes about pregnancy. For example, she uses a negative metaphor saying she is an elephant, meaning she thinks that she has become very fat since she got pregnant. On the other hand, she uses a positive metaphor saying the baby is precious, meaning although pregnancy has its down sides it has got a few good sides like the baby.

Do you have a certain hobby or sport that you have been passionate about since you were a child? Lucille Clifton did, and that passion was writing. She felt as if it gave her “a way of walking in the world, a way of seeing the world, a way of understanding the world in one's life.” As an African American woman she didn't really fit in with others. Her poem “ What the Mirror Said” describes the insecurities of a woman and how they need to love themselves for who they are, not by hating their image because of comparison to another.

The poem “The Mirror” is told from an interesting perspective. In this poem the story is being told from the point of view of the mirror itself. The author uses personification to bring the mirror to life. It tells us what it sees and how it perceives things. The first stanza of the poem is intriguing and optimistic as the mirror describes itself. The mirror is “silver and exact” (L 1) alluding that it is perfect, and makes no mistakes. It will show exactly what it sees with no bias towards who or what it is reflecting. It is truthful not cruel. It also refers Itself as “the eye of a little God” (L5) meaning that the mirror reflects truth, sees all things and sees who we truly are. This stanza represents youth and naivety. The poem then takes a depressing turn. Throughout the

To start off is the theme of social anxiety in Sylvia Plath’s Mirror. This poem is about a mirror that spends most of it’s days reflecting the wall, but occasionally, it is the friend of a man or woman. One day, a woman comes to stare into its depths,

The tone is used in the poem as well to prove the sea is remorseless and cruel. In addition it states, “She choked him and beat him to death for a joke”(L 15-16) The sea does not show mercy and beats the child to death for a “joke”. The sea begins to drown the child for a lesson, and opens up to be unpredictable ferocious. Furthermore another piece of evidence that shows that the ocean is dangerous is, “She shouted for joy, with one hand she strangled the strong little boy”(L 18-20) The sea finally holds captive of the boy and begins to drown him roughly. The boy’s fate with death is now upon him and he can not fight it, the sea is just too powerful.

The speaker shows what the ship looked like before and after the iceberg in order to show the ship’s depressing demise. The third stanza reads, “Over the mirrors meant/ To glass the opulent/ The sea-worm crawls-grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.” The titanic was mainly built for wealthy passengers, so that knowledge leads to the image of an ornate mirror being looked at by well-clothed people; however, that image is then shattered as we see