Poetry

“Winter Trees” was written in late 1962 of Plath’s life. It’s likely that the landscape reflected here is the countryside of Devon where Sylvia Plath lived. Her echoes of this being a bleak place are felt in the overall tone and could possibly be her mirroring her regret of being a woman. It’s likely the hatred she projects here is manifested toward her husband’s lover with whom he had an affair with. Plath seems to be expressing the abhorrence she has towards her own physique as well. "Ring on ring" might directly refer to infidelity and bigamy. We see this embodied in her wish to be unemotional; she envies the trees that seem to grow anthropomorphic qualities which are extensions of her perceptions. They grow memories and don’t know either “abortions or bitchery”, and are “truer than women”.

This poem conveys a profound grievance and a compelling desire to be different in her current existence. These emotions are juxtaposed with the landscape and vegetation (trees). In this light, the remaining stanza which includes the rhetorical question “Who are these pietas?” and the expression “O mother of leaves and sweetness”, communicate the most passionate aspect of the poem. They correspond with the end, which diffuses an atmosphere of hopelessness.

“Poppies in July” was written during the breakup of Plath’s marriage to Ted Hughes, and mirrors the emotions of detachment and numbness. It would seem like the only way our speaker is able to recognise that she is alive or escape the hopelessness she feels is by experiencing pain, or by escaping through a drug induced state.

The title is deceptive in that it advocates a landscape that is seemingly blissful (Poppies in July) instead it contrasts significantly with the subject matter of t...

... middle of paper ...

...orning clouds” or the bleeding heart of the “women in the ambulance.” Our speaker is more than likely comparing these natural phenomena to herself and her failed suicide attempt.

In the second stanza “the gift of beauty” could be Sylvia referring to her life spared, even though she desired death. In comparison to the Poppies which bloom in the summer, which if they were to bloom in October, would be an unasked for gift.

The fourth stanza typifies our speakers’ realization of what she has done, and it scares her. It is clear that she is desperate for answers as she petitions; “O my God, what am I?” She questions her existence in comparison to a seemingly “normal” society. This is achieved by the reference to the cornflower also known as the “common cornflower” typifying the ordinariness of society, whilst contrasting the “forest of frosts” to her emotional state.