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Analysis of out ot poem
Analysis of out ot poem
Analysis of out ot poem
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Carolyn Kizer mentions at the end that his friends are “well-groomed pets” unlike the speaker. Plath dehumanizes the speaker by comparing herself to a cat that had nine lives. The poem also contains internal monologue between the speaker and her inner bitch while there is external dialogue from her and her ex-lover. These components are major when discussing the meanings of each poem.
The tone of the poems have a similar negative connotation but in “Bitch” the speaker changes the tone from angry then to depressed back to angry. On the other hand, “Lady Lazarus” has a complex tone that includes pride, self-loathing, and critical of others by taking morbid pleasure in the “show” she created. When the speaker in “Bitch” first notices her ex-lover,
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Sylvia Plath created her title from her “long standing interest in the biblical story of Lazarus that peaked after her first attempt of suicide in 1953” and she felt like she “had been on the other side of life like Lazarus"(Plath’s LADY LAZARUS). Unlike the story “Lazarus” which uses the power for good, “Lady Lazarus” struggles to rise up over the cruel deity. Just like in “Lazarus” when Jesus has risen him from the dead, a similar belief is shown in “Lady Lazarus” after she was able to survive her near-death suicide attempts. In the poem “Bitch”, the title holds the meaning of a female dog and the male use of the word. It also shows in the title a “truly felt sense of belittlement confronts demeaning male name-calling.”(Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Ed.) Often times, males use this generalized term to describe an overbearing or unpleasant women. Since Kizer is a feminist, she included this definition to associate the male-dominant world of the 1950’s that she wanted to put an end to. The speaker refers to her inner-self as a bitch using both denotations to describe the dog-like overbearing emotions that she receives from the conversation with her
In the short story “Initiation” author Sylvia Plath suggests that conformity, although the societal norm, is not always as grand as it is made out to be, while also suggesting that even though conformity typically hinders one’s self growth, there are times when the fear of conforming can make one’s sense of self stronger. These two ideas together show that Plath uses this short story to convey the message that even though conformity is not inherently a positive thing, it can drive a person to look in on themselves and develop a unique identity. Plath uses symbolism, and character introspection to assert this idea.
The narrator is trapped by their past, and the poem describes it affecting their daily life. They have a black cat they are envious of, because the cat is carefree and does not make the same mistakes that the narrator does. “He refuses to be snared by a single love the way I did” (319). The narrator had gotten trapped by a love that went badly, and left them being broken from it. Their cat does not make this mistake, and is also carefree, “He leaps from the rooftop . . . doesn't dread crossing bridges or dark alleyways” (318). He just lives his life out and is not concerned about any sort of danger, and because of this the narrator is envious of the cat. They cannot act the same way as the cat does, they are too concerned about their life and what happens with it, “He doesn't cling to life as I do” (318). The narrator seems to be trapped by their past, and because of this, it affects the way they live now. They have shut themselves off purposefully, they let their past affect them this much, they corrupted themselves. They know this, and they wish they had not let it happen, this is why they envy their
Life has been some combination of fairy-tale coincidence and joie de vivre and shocks of beauty together with some hurtful self-questioning. --The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The theme of this poem is perspective, how the woman sees herself and how she is actually portrayed. In other words this poem is bashing the idea of vanity and replacing it with reality. Plath uses different types of figures of speech to try to make the intended theme clear. In the first nine line of the poem, personification is used to promote the theme. The second section of the poem lines 10-14 Plath uses metaphors, paradox and a jealous tone to relate to the theme of the poem. The final section of the poem lines 15-18 Plath uses a simile and a very serious tone to show exactly what the main theme of the poem is.
instead of starting with plath's poetry I decided to start off with her only novel, the bel jar. "the bell jar is a novel about the events of sylvia plath's twentieth year; about how she tried to die, and how they stuck her together with glue. it is a fine novel, as bitter and remorseless as her last poems--the kind of book salinger's franny might have written about herself ten years later, if she had spent those ten years in hell" (scholes). i want to explain the imagery in the title of plath's autobiography. i stated the definition earlier. a bell jar is basically like a regular jar that has been turned upside down. it is glass and transparent. unlike a jar, a bell jar is often used to display something fragile. in her novel, plath was fragile and her bell jar was her environment. in her novel she spent five weeks in a mental institution. there, she was on display to many counselors, nurses, physicians, psychiatrists, and psychologists. they watched Pplath regain stability from the day of her arrival to the day of her dismissal. also, "controlled atmosphere" can be seen as the environment of the institute. now on to the poetry of sylvia plath. just a little note... before i read her work i thought poetry sucked. anyway, in the poem "lady lazarus" plath speaks of her own suicide and she even takes some pride in her knowledge of death. in a reading prepared for bbc radio, plath introduced this poem: "the speaker is a woman who has the great and terrible gift of being reborn. the only trouble is, she has to die first. she is the phoenix, the libertarian spirit, what you will. she is also just a good, plain, very resourceful woman" (Plath 294).
"Ode to the Death of a Favorite Cat" can be a poem that represents a sexist view of women while identifying the three psychological entities; the id, ego, and superego.
"Ariel" is the title poem from Sylvia Plath's controversial collection of poetry written during the last few months of her life in 1963. The traditional gender roles of 1960s America promoted a double-standard and wrongly imposed upon women the idea of a "Happy Housewife Heroine" who cherished "the receptivity and passivity implicit in (her) nature" and was "devoted to (her) own beauty and (her) ability to bear and nurture children" (Friedan, 59). Plath comments on the devastating effects of social convention on individuality, but she realizes that both sexes are affected by society's oppression of its members. She contemplates this theme throughout Ariel, especially in the "The Applicant," a critique of the emptiness of the stereotypical roles of men and women at the time.
In poetry, the speaker is not necessarily the author but is the voice of the poem that conveys his or her situations or emotions. In the beginning of the poem, the speaker meets her ex lover “after all these years” (Kizer line 1). Kizer uses an extended metaphor of the speaker’s inner self as a dog, more specifically, a female dog, which explains the title, “Bitch”. The speaker’s inner bitch reveals emotions of being wounded, furious, and affectionate towards her former lover all at once. The speaker is miserable in how she has to hold back the dog. She says, “as I drag you off by the scruff” (Line 33). This gives the reader the imagery of a dog being pulled away from something the dog aspired to do, illustrating the miserable and wounded tone. The speaker is
Sylvia Plath’s poem Lady Lazarus tells a haunting tale of attempted suicide and self empowerment. “Poem Analysis: Lady Lazarus” written by Axelle Black breaks the poem down stanza by stanza and individually interprets them. She draws upon Plath’s own life as well as textual evidence within the poem to present her interpretation in a clear, logical manner. Through her analysis, Black provides deeper understanding and appreciation of the poem in its entirety.
“Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.” ( http://thinkexist.com/quotes/sylvia_plath/)
Sylvia Plath’s poem “Mirror” is about a women maturing with time and her mirror is witness to her aging and her journey to finding herself. The mirror serves as a vivid portrayal of women’s life and stride through a very reliable persona, the mirror. Along her required journey she is faced with obstacles, such as herself and time ticking. All through life’s inconsistencies the mirror is the only one that does not hide her truth but reveals it to her even though she may not want to face reality. This poem is a representation of the idea that beauty lies in the hands of the beholder. The mirror only reflects the image to the woman, but it is the woman herself who is judging.
The collective body of Sylvia Plath's poetry demonstrates definitively her mastery of her craft. Plath has been criticized for her overtly autobiographical work and her suicidal pessimism, however, close study reveals that her poetry transcends categorization and has a voice uniquely her own. As Katha Pollit concluded in a 1982 Nation review, "by the time she came to write her last seventy or eighty poems, there was no other voice like hers on earth" (Wagner 1). In works such as "Lady Lazarus," "Daddy," and "Morning Song," Plath relates her own painfully experiences in the form of dramatic monologues using a persona who eventually triumphs over adversity by regaining the self that had been lost before the struggle of the poem.
Plath explores Lady Lazarus' nontraditional view of suicide in her poem; (since Plath does not give the speaker of the poem a name, I will refer to her as Lady Lazarus). Lady Lazarus reveals her first suicide was accidental, but she reveals that her two subsequent deaths have been deliberate. This is significant as she is not speaking of attempts, but actual suicides; also, she establishes her intention. In describing the woman's attitude, Plath varies between using metaphors, such as "It's the theatrical/Comeback in broad day" (51-52), and similes: "my skin/Bright as Nazi lampshade" (4-5); "I rocked shut/As a seashell" (38-39). Plath's indifferent and almost positive connotations suggest Lady Lazarus embraces death as indicative of her ability to survive. Also, the poem's structure of three-line stanzas is symbolic of this being Lady Lazarus' third suicide. After her suicide, Lady Lazarus declares she is only "Ash," "Flesh, bone,"(75) "A cake of soap/A wedding ring,/A gold filling" (76-78): she does not reminisce about who she was, but rather, literally what she now is. Plath's repetition of "ash" indicates Lady Lazarus' preoccupation: "I turn and burn" (71); Lady Lazarus does not express resentment towards this death, likely symbolic, as she does not articulate the exact method. Furthermore, Lady...
Sylvia Plath’s poetry reverberates with universal female experience and anxieties; it addresses a female upbringing, pregnancy, childbirth, marriage while also critically engaging with stereotypes of femininity, often illustrating these through myth or metaphor. These feminine themes are recurrent throughout her poetry, often written about with a sense of ambivalence or fear. Putting aside Plath’s own autobiographical influences in the production of this poetry, the inclination towards darkness is a notable trend among women drawn to writing. Plath’s poetry often draws upon stereotypes, and this may reflect the toxicity of the ‘Poetess’ and stereotypic, often creatively paralysing, expectations that underpin the label. Germaine Greer notes that female poets feel pressure to “cannibalise” themselves because “unhappy women will be attracted to poetry, and that poetry will give their unhappiness permanent form in intransigent text”
Plath conveys her mother as an image that readily accepts her husband's death, "[dreaming him] face down in the sea" and attempting to comfort Sylvia by telling her that "he died like any man." Plath alludes to the nature of her father's death, "the gangrene (that) ate [him] to the bone", in the last stanza. Otto Plath actually ignored an infection, and it eventually turned to gangrene, and then death. Suicidal images can also be seen in the last stanza, where Plath describes her "own blue razor rusting at [her] throat", and dubs herself "the ghost of an infamous suicide". Plath reveals a kaleidoscoped relationship between herself and her father as she bitterly refers to herself as her father's "hound-bitch, daughter, friend".