Jessica Sutherland
English 1102 What Does Internal Mean to Eternal Man? The poem “Fever 103°”, written by Sylvia Plath, reveals competing satire and radical takes on the poem. A formal analysis and reader-response will explore the poems two meanings and how they are shaped and built within the work. The work in short is an expression of sex and sensuality versus safe guarding ones purity and oneself. As it opens with Cerberus at the gates of hell, unable to lick clean the feverish tendon, then to love as in the smell of a snuffed candle, next to the smoke breaking the speaker’s neck. The poem continues to compare adulterers to devilish leopards, but in the next stanza she pleads and her sheets grow heavy. The elements of allusion, diction and, imagery come together to highlight the poem’s ambiguity. Its ambiguity, the two views of taking the poem as the speaker being straight forward in presenting the celibate as more godly, and as a result the impure unworthy of them, and the perspective that the speakers god-complex and displayed self-importance is satire to mock the pure who find themselves so mighty. The two takes on the work are hidden from another once it is read within the internal perspective view of the reader. “Fever 103°” is a poem of two foils chosen to created make a mockery of the reader, the views are pinned together to show the human self-servient manner to choose what gives them self-justification. The poem fights heaven and hell. It alludes to the gates of hell, “Cerberus / who wheezes at the gate. Incapable / of licking clean / the aguey tendon, the sin, the sin.” (Plath lines 4-7) The line portrays the feverish tendon, sexual desire, as being at the very gates of hell, a sin to take you to hell. In the next two lines the speaker says “The tinder cries. / The indelible smell”, immediately changing the view to a lovers view and showing the two takes on the work (Plath lines 8-9). The mockery of the self-righteous pure is expressed in the lines that paint them as gods, “Virgin / Attended by roses, / By kisses, by cherubim”, but this may also be taken as justification of self-righteousness by those who find themselves above others who act on worldly desires, to be attended by cherubim, who are the attendants to God (Plath lines 47-49). Imagery of the work paints a golden picture of purity while making it a ridiculous display. The lines “my golden beaten skin / Infinitely delicate and infinitely expensive.” gives a picture of a perfect pure virgin, but also mocks the pure speaker as proclaiming herself as gold and worth more than anyone else. The prideful pure would find that their purity is of higher value, and the prideful that are themselves sensual would say one human is not “more expensive” than another. The image of a bedroom is displayed in a conflicting manner, “Darling, all night / I have been flickering, off, on, off, on. / The sheets grow heavy as a lecher’s kiss.” Here the two perspective come together is a resistance of each other (Plath lines 28-30). The pure wanting the pleasure, and the pleasure wanting the pure, but there is no satisfaction and the poem is moved into resistance and pin the two views against one another again. The diction of “Fever 103°” is poetic. A high form of writing that allows the tone to be taken as either pompous or self-assured. The speech in the lines “I am too pure for you or anyone. / You’re body / Hurts me as the world hurts God”, gives an air of high education and sophistication, but it also shows the speaker saying she is too good for anyone, and is an example of where the ambiguity comes forth again in the line being taken as a pompous claim or a correct self-appraisal (Plath lines 34-36). “All by myself I am huge camellia / Glowing and coming and going, flush on flush” the diction of these lines is a poetic play on words (Plath lines 41-42). It has taken the phrase flesh on flesh, which is used to indicate touch in poetry, and altered is, allowing for a conception of sensuality within the poem being taken at face value as a revolt against sex. The diction greater brings the two perspectives of the poem into view, the speaking of the might, and the speaking of the high and mighty. My personal response as the reader was greatly impacted by my life experience, and allowed me to also fall into the trap of following a certain view of the poem to justify my views. My being not a virgin, and not feeling less valuable for it, had me see the poem as satire in my bare reading. The extreme claims of the speaker greatly highlighted this for me, claims of being god like, and of being expensive. I followed the work as a mockery of the self-righteous. Looking at the illusions, I saw examples of life and death, heaven and hell. Firstly I saw this as the fight of good and evil, but reading closer, I saw heaven and hell being alluded to as the decision of where each person should go based off of their purity. The imagery of the poem showed not life and death but death resulting from the living of a certain kind of life. The death of damnation from a life of self-indulgence. I had written off the diction in my bare reader-response as pompous until I reviewed it as being self-assured. When applying the formal analysis to my reading I lastly found ambiguity in the poem. This ambiguity changed how I read and received this poem fully. I took the poem as satire as a self-servient view to match what I thought of my own action. Another reader, with the actions of purity, may be reassured by this poem that they are living in the right way, and for them to take this poem as satire would be against their own views, as mine would be to take it at its face value. Realizing the work has these two conflicting views, it was seen that many lines supported both views. The beginning of the poem “Pure? What does it mean?” opens the poem with the ambiguity of it referring the meaning of purity or referring to what meaning does purity even have (Plath line 1). The ambiguity is fluent even to the closing line “To Paradise” which is what heaven is commonly referred to in literature, but it is also commonly used to refer to the moments of physical touch (Plath line 54). The analysis that the poem did not favor one take to the other lead to the fact that I, the reader, favored one take to the other based on my own personal feelings. The poem not giving a judgement on purity did point out the reader’s judgement on others of the opposite view and the reader’s self-servient perspectives. I find this poem to be satirical, but not of the speaker, but of the reader. As people we look outwards from our inner thoughts, and do not see when exterior is looking into our interior. The ambiguity of the work creates a conflict force not of two views of a poem, but of two readers. Two readers who may not catch their own behavior to assure themselves, and will not catch their mocker. The readers are foils of each other. The highlight of people and their passing judgement to others without knowing they pass judgement. The elements of allusion, diction, and imagery in the work highlight a fight, not of the speaker casting off sex, but of people casting off of other perspectives to fulfill their own values. It is a display of human short-sightedness, to be closer to what they already feel, and of, the greatest display of humanity, hypocrisy by judging those who judge. There is no greater magnifying glass than the art of poetry to assess the words, and find in it what you already have inside yourself; to each his own view of life, and my the reader overcome themselves in the art.

Work Cited
Plath, Sylvia. “Fever 103°.” The Collected Poems. Ed. Ted Hughes 1996 and renewed 1994 by Ted Hughes by permission of HarperCollins. 231. Print.