...“Two Sisters of Persephone” by Sylvia Plath, introduces a stage in Plath’s life. Written in 1956, the same year Plath got married, this poem presents two potential paths for Plath and also exposes her severe depression that began as a young girl and endured throughout her adulthood. The speaker’s inability to reconcile two personalities in this poem leads to her demise. This is illustrated though textual and literary devices, as well as mythological allusions. Plath’s background along with Greek myths allows the reader feel a part of Plath’s dilemma and relate her problem to many women. Sylvia Plath was born in 1932. The death of Plath's father in 1940 led to her extreme depression, which never subsided. She had two unsuccessful suicide attempts at ages 10 and 20. However, in 1954, things began to seem optimistic, with Plath receiving scholarship to Harvard summer school and then in 1955 with her graduation from Smith and attending Cambridge University on Fulbright fellowship. On June 16, 1956, Sylvia Plath married Ted Hughes. Plath was known to be a feminist, which is evident in this poem, “Two Sisters of Persephone.” When her hard-working self was presented with marriage, Plath was confronted with a crisis that is represented in the poem. With her new marriage, she questioned whether or not she should remain herself and work, or become the stereotypical wife, stay home, and merely bear children. The emotional effects on Plath from the death of her father ultimately...
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...Mad Girl’s Love Song Mad Girl’s Love Song is written in 1951, by Sylvia Plath. Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. She was born on October 27, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts and she died on February 11, 1963 in London, England. Mad Girl’s Love Song is a poem, Sylvia Plath wrote while she was a student at Smith College. The poem has a theme of suicide as an escape. There are many places where the theme of suicide appears in the poem. The poem is about a girl who spent her whole life waiting for a man she gave herself to, against her beliefs, who was never to return. There is one phrase in the poem that which has a big importance. I think I made you up inside my head This phrase is repeated a few times and that makes us thinks that the girl is wishing that this man is made up, and she is trying to convince herself of it. The phrase is kind of a quote which signifies that these are thoughts to her, and not out loud, which can means that she is trying to convince herself it is true. Sylvia wished that she would overcome her depression and grow out of the despair she was living in. I fancied you’d return the way you said, but I grow old and I forget your name But in fact, her wishes and search for her happiness had driven her insane. She had been lost for so long that she didn't remember what it was like to truly be happy so therefore she would never be able to identify it if she were to regain control of her life. I think I made you...
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...interpretation of "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath Marlene Williams Eng/125 December 15, 2012 Michele Watson My interpretation of "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath is a dark and solemn journey through the thoughts of a young girl scorned. This young girl becomes the woman who continues to carry the burden of her childhood in her adult life. The setting and feeling of the poem is dismal and full of rage, a rage Sylvia Plath claims to put behind her in the last line “ / Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through. / “(Plath, 1963) but in reality she was never capable of escaping the pain. The poem “Daddy” if the wording is taken literally as opposed to figuratively and or symbolically, the leads the reader to believe that Sylvia Plath was raised in a military family by an oppressive father who brought his work home with him. The poem entails so much more than what is on the surface, there is a darkness buried deep within the words left for the reader to unearth by searching beyond the words and into the soul of the poet. “Daddy” is engorged with metaphoric references to a dark and oppressive past where Plath equates her father’s hand to that of a Nazi. The reader can be eluded to believe in the third stanza that Plath is describing the uniform of a soldier. ” / And a head in the freakish Atlantic. / Where it pours bean green over blue. / “(Plath, 1963). In reality Sylvia Plath’s father was not in the military, Otto Plath was actually “a professor of biology...
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...2013. M.12 Coimisiún na Scrúduithe Stáit State Examinations Commission LEAVING CERTIFICATE EXAMINATION, 2013 English - Higher Level - Paper 2 Total Marks: 200 Thursday, 6 June – Afternoon, 2.00 – 5.20 Candidates must attempt the following :• ONE question from SECTION I – The Single Text • ONE question from SECTION II – The Comparative Study • ONE question on the Unseen Poem from SECTION III – Poetry • ONE question on Prescribed Poetry from SECTION III – Poetry N.B. Candidates must answer on Shakespearean Drama. They may do so in SECTION I, the Single Text (Macbeth) or in SECTION II, The Comparative Study (Macbeth, The Winter’s Tale). INDEX OF SINGLE TEXTS Wuthering Heights The Great Gatsby The Grass Is Singing Macbeth Antigone − Page 2 − Page 2 − Page 3 − Page 3 − Page 3 Page 1 of 8 SECTION I THE SINGLE TEXT (60 marks) Candidates must answer one question from this section (A – E). A WUTHERING HEIGHTS – Emily Brontë (i) In your opinion, to what extent are the values represented by the world of Thrushcross Grange defeated, in Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights? Support your answer with suitable reference to the text. OR (ii) “Emily Brontë makes effective use of both Nelly Dean and Mr Lockwood in a variety of ways.” Discuss this statement, supporting your answer with suitable reference to the novel, Wuthering Heights. B THE GREAT GATSBY – F. Scott Fitzgerald (i) “Readers of The Great Gatsby are greatly influenced by the narrator, Nick Carraway.” Discuss...
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...doubt that Sylvia Plath is definitely one of the most diverse controversial poets of our time. Sylvia Plath was born October 27, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts and unfortunately passed away on February 11, 1963 in London, England due to her battle with suicide. The poem relates to her life and also her perspective of the world. As a matter of fact, critics often characterized her as “extreme,” due to the deep emotional issues that she would write about. As time has passed, Plath is often referred to as a “cult figure.” “Lady Lazarus” is one of Plath’s most popular works. To make it simple this poem is about death and her suicidal experiences. (Sanazaro) “Lady Lazarus” by Sylvia Plath is a very complex poem. Sylvia Plath wrote this intense poem during her most fruitful and imaginative period. “Lady Lazarus” has been a topic of a lot of literary criticism since it was published. It is mostly understood as a collection of Plath’s thoughts, suicidal efforts and urges. (“SYLVIA LADY LAZARUS REVISITED”) The tone in this poem veers between threatening and scornful; it draws attention to itself for its use of Holocaust imagery, reading this poem anybody could figure out that the character and even Plath is not happy with her life and obviously has some deep emotional resentment that unfortunately she never got to resolve. In 1970, M. L. Rosenthal wrote an essay entitled “Sylvia Plath and Confessional Poetry” for Charles’ Newman’s collection, The Art of Sylvia Plath. In this essay Rosenthal...
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...In this poem, Sylvia Plath expresses a desire to be in control. She feels she has to deal with a dangerous situation. At first she is not in control. She panics. She has a debate with herself and then she makes a calm decision. Silvia Plath wrote this poem in seven five-line stanzas followed by a single line. On one level Plath is simply recalling a personal incident. The story of the poem concerns a task with a bee box. In the first stanza she states that it looks like ‘square’, like a midget’s coffin, heavy and noisy: ‘such a din in it’. The word ‘coffin’ suggests death. The overall description of the bee-box is strange and disturbing. In the second stanza, the bee box both frightens and attracts Plath. She stares in at the bees through a little wire grid. The box is ‘locked’ because its contents are ‘dangerous’. Yet Plath ‘can’t keep away from it’. She examines the box and considers opening it. But she is faced with the threat that what is inside may injure her. Yet, she feels she has to 'to live with it overnight'. In the third stanza, she regards the bees as angry slaves that seek release and revenge: ‘Black on black, angrily clambering’. Through the wire grid she sees darkness. She imagines the bees are like army divisions of blackness that she associates with ‘the swarmy feeling of African hands’. She is in a state of alarm. In the fourth stanza, the buzzing noise puts her off releasing the bees. She fears their bee language and now regards them as an aggressive...
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...chosen symbol that stands for the objective representation of the truth. As Plath mentions:” I have no preconceptions…I am not cruel, only truthful.” In fact, the mirror reflects the author’s subconscious, which is freed by the purity and truthfulness the mirror. The mirror has no magic power in it, but simply portrays the reality to those who use it. “It swallows” the true image just the way it is without any prejudice, unlike the humans that see things distorted through the lenses of their inner bias. We can observe an interesting usage of the figures of speech in the poem. The mirror is not only a symbol, but it is also a personification, because the mirror tells us the story from its standpoint. Therefore, the symbol of the truth tells us a story of the unbiased reality it has to portray to those who seek answers in it. Sylvia Plath was a representative of a confessional poetry genre. She herself was that woman looking in the mirror. That mirror exposed her to much pain through its honesty. She is scared of that true image of herself getting older as the days go by That is why she turns to lake, but the lake does not want to lie to her either. Even that she detests her own reflection, she still becomes dependent on the truth the lake gives her. Therefore, closer to the end of the poem you can see that kind of relationship were it says "I am important to her. She comes and goes." Metaphorically Plath calls the moon and the candles liars, because they do not give the precise...
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...but separated due to the different time periods in which they were set, thus resulting in controversy and criticisms making it difficult to find a place within literature. Mark Twain’s ‘Huckleberry Finn’ is the story of a young boy, Huck Finn, who is faced with a restraint enforced upon him by society and later acknowledges this restraint once he comes to the realization that there is no escape from the society. ‘Vernon God Little’, like Huckleberry Finn, is also a story of a young boy framed as an accessory in a High School Massacre and is rendered to be an outcast in a society which revolves around manipulation and gullibility. Both Pierre and Twain portray the limitations and issues placed upon a young boy growing up in society. Sylvia Plath was viewed as a feminist icon, her collection ‘Ariel’, adopts the theme of outsider, as she believed women were classed as second-tier in a male dominant society and posed as a response to patriarchy in which oppressed women. The three texts intertwine in the portrayal of the outsider and act as a commentary on the societies in which these writers lived in. Correspondingly, as the characters portrayed in the novels were unable to identify their place in society, the texts themselves struggled to find a place within literature due to the sources of controversy and literary criticisms they received. Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn was written shortly after the American Civil War (1861-65), which occurred mainly over the Southern,...
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...Literature, Archaeology and Anthropology. While at Cambridge, he met his first wife, Sylvia Plath, whom he married in 1956. After university he had various jobs, including working in a zoo, teaching and reading scripts at Pinewood Studios. Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes had two children but later separated. In the year after their separation she committed suicide. Hughes followed his relationship with Plath by one with Assia Wevill. They lived together and she looked after his children from his first marriage. However, she also committed suicide, gassing herself and her daughter in a manner similar to that of Plath. In 1970, Hughes married Carol Orchard and they remained together until his death. In 1984 Hughes became Poet Laureate and held the post until his death. He died in 1998, shortly after the publication of Birthday Letters, a collection of poems about his relationship with Sylvia Plath. His ashes were scattered on Dartmoor. Hughes writes about the elements and aspects of the natural world in much of his poetry. The poet Simon Armitage said that for Hughes, poetry was ‘a connecting rod between nature and humanity’. Hughes was a very prolific writer who as well as writing poetry, also wrote for children. In his book Poetry in the Making, he gives insight into the writing process and his inspiration for writing: It is occasionally possible, just for brief moments, to find the words that will unlock the doors of all those many mansions in the head and express something...
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...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...
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...Honors American Author Essay In an interview, Anne Sexton claims, “Poetry is my life, my postmark, my hands, my kitchen, my face.” (“Anne Sexton Quotes Quotable Quote”). This statement accurately describes Anne Sexton’s life considering she wrote approximately 14 books of poetry while she was alive. Anne Sexton was born on November 9th, 1928 in Newton, Massachusetts and died on October 4th, 1974 in Weston, Massachusetts and was also was most closely associated with the Confessional Movement of the early to mid 20th century. Anne Sexton’s dark, deranged, and personal thoughts fit perfectly with the other writers that took part in the Confessional Movement but her poem, “Young” takes her to her parallel universe that she so hopelessly wished she lived in. The poem “Young” by Anne Sexton was part of her book of poems, All My Pretty Ones which was published in 1962. Throughout some of her poetry, including “Young” it is not so obvious to see why she was part of the Confessional Movement. When one reads the poem “Young” it can easily be interpreted that it is about a lonely young girl on a starry summer night, lying outside on the grass, thinking about how she is transforming from a child into an adolescent. It also touches base on what she used to believe as a child and what she knows is real now. There is almost a sense of mourning when she realizes that her old thoughts are not what they seem, especially when she speaks of God. One can also conclude that she’s dealing with...
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...A prominent figure of modern American literature, confessional poet, Sylvia Plath, works hold grand significance, for it lead to the probe of a feminist-martyr to patriarchal society, sex-based roles, and psychiatric care. Noted for the blend of intense imagery and humorous use of alliteration and rhyme, Plath associating her works with her personal battles of anguish and depression, further solidified her mark on American history. Sylvia Plath was born in 1932 in Winthrop, Massachusetts, to an academically well-established family. Her father died when she was eight, marking the beginning of her lifelong internal battles of depression, hence her poem Daddy. Ambitiously driven and exceptional student, from a young age she kept journals, published poems in reginal magazines and newspapers. She later attended Smith and Cambridge University, where she met and married the poet, Ted Hughes, birthing two children. Throughout her life, Plath suffered deep depression and...
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...SYLVIA PLATH Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer. She is widely recognized as one of the most important American poets of the twentieth century. Her best-known poems are carefully crafted pieces noted for their personal imagery and intense focus. Many concern such themes as alienation, death, and self-destruction. Her vivid imagery, searing tone, and intimate topics cemented her place among the pantheon of great poets. Best known for novel The Bell Jar and her second volume of poetry, Ariel, Plath's reputation has only grown since her death in 1963. She is considered a poet of the confessional movement, which was led by Robert Lowell, but her work transcends this label and speaks to more universal truths than simply her own emotions. Although the sensational nature of her death by suicide has led some critics and readers to conflate the value of her life and art, Sylvia Plath's poetry demonstrates an astonishing capacity to engage with the art of poetry; many of her words and images have become fully entrenched in the literary consciousness. EARLY LIFE Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932 in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts to Aurelia Schobert Plath (American of Austrian descent) and Otto Emile Plath (immigrant from Grabow, Germany). Her father was a biology and German professor at Boston University. He was also an author of a book based on bumblebees. There was a stark age difference between Plath’s parents, her mother being twenty one years...
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...Confessional poetry emerged in the United States in the 1950’s. It was the first time a poet told his or her story through their poetry. It often explored ideas that were thought of as taboo in those times such as mental illness, sexuality, and suicide. Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton were two famous confessional poets. They both also suffered from mental illness which is often expressed in their poetry. Sylvia Plath’s “Lady Lazarus” and Anne Sexton’s “Her Kind” both use allusions and imagery to convey their emotions to the reader. In Sylvia Plath’s poem, there is an allusion in the title itself, “Lady Lazarus.” Lazarus refers to the biblical figure that was resurrected by Jesus Christ. It’s ironic that the speaker would choose a biblical reference when comparing it to her suicide attempt. Her ”resurrection” happened because she failed at taking her own life. Another allusion occurs at the end of the poem: “Out of the ash, I rise with my red hair, And I eat men like air.” She is referring to the phoenix found in Greek mythology. A phoenix is a long-lived bird that is frequently reborn. The speaker is obviously unhappy with life yet she uses allusions that represent a positive rebirth. The first lines of her poem state “I have done it again. One year in every ten I manage it—“ referring to the fact that she has attempted to commit suicide at least once per decade. “The second time I meant to last it out and not come back at all. I rocked shut as a seashell...
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...1694 words Andrea Dworkin stated that “the feminine ideal by definition turns a woman into a function, deprives her of any individuality that is self-serving or self-created”. With reference to The Bell Jar, consider the view that Sylvia Plath would agree with all parts of this statement? The Bell Jar could be regarded as an archetypal feminist work in which women are presented as repressed and prevented from any possibility of becoming wholly autonomous beings, free from relationships with men, unable to define their own existence. Esther conforms to this depiction and is perpetually oppressed by misogynistic ideology. However, we must consider that she is not entirely deprived of an expressive disposition, and so it could be argued that, although she may not be entirely “self-serving” or “self-created”, she does possess an individualistic nature made evident through her literary self-expression. A sense of individuality becomes clear when noting that Esther, despite being a female of modest background, has obtained a prestigious scholarship to New York- a city of growth and freedom. She has ended up “Steering New York like her own private car” and here the use of the word “own” suggests that her ambition is self-controlled and so she possesses an individualistic temperament conflicting with Dworkin’s belief. Moreover, Esther has the opportunity to write for a magazine, suggesting that she is more creatively liberalised than many males during this era. Esther’s self-critical...
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