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What Is The Mood Of Two Sisters Of Persephone

Decent Essays
Through the use of distinct opposites, Sylvia Plath is able to create two different mood in her poem, “Two Sisters of Persephone.” The concept of two moods is set up in the poem’s first stanza: “daylong a duet of shade and light,”(2). This line suggests a battle between light and dark. Light being a metaphor for and hope and happiness and darkness a metaphor for depression and sadness. Already, it’s obvious that there are two distinct females who are representative of different concepts. The first girl, who has a, “root-pale…meager frame,”(12) is obviously darkness. She’s weak and pale which suggests hunger or deprivation of some sort. There’s no doubt that this fact contributes to the darkness portrayed by the first female. It also seems as though she is dying. This death could be a sort of hyperbole to explain what’s happening within her or it could be literal. The girl of darkness, “sees how their red silk flare / of petaled blood,” (17-18). Plath speaks of the girl seeing blood as a red silk flare.…show more content…
Blood could be a metaphorical term for the dark girl having the life and her will to live sucked out of her. Either way, the lines create an eerie, depressed mood. The other girl, however, is, “bronzed as earth… / hearing ticks blown gold / like pollen on bright air. Lulled / near a bed of poppies,”(13-16). This girl has all of these bright, happy, carefree aspects which are part of her life. Her life is seemingly carefree. She hears blown gold and floating pollen. It’s as though she’s near the mentioned bed of poppies. The bright girl, “freely become[s] sun’s bride,”(21). This suggests that the girl of light is not restricted in any way and is free to be happy. Sylvia Plath’s use of opposites in her poem, “The Two Sisters of Persephone,” creates two separate moods; one of depression and one of happiness and
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