The poems “Metaphors” by Sylvia Plath and “Sonnet 7” by William Shakespeare contrast one another and provide insight into how each author felt about the issue of having a child through their writing. According to the website dedicated to her, Sylviaplath.de, Sylvia Plath wrote poetry predominantly in the mid 20th century. Her views on pregnancy are reflected in her poem “Metaphors” and are drastically different from those of Shakespeare. The gap in time between each poem is somewhere around three hundred and fifty years. This gap explains a lot about the different views on having children, showing the predominant opinions of the population during their day and age. By analyzing these poems and contrasting different elements present in each of the works, the differing views of each generation on having children come to light. The poems “Metaphors” by Sylvia Plath and “Sonnet 7” by William Shakespeare show how views on having children have evolved over time through contrasting imagery, diction, and metaphors.
In the poem “Metaphors” by Sylvia Plath, imagery is present in every aspect of the poem. Many of the lines in this work depict at least one image through their descriptions, and many of the lines had several. Some of the most important images present in the poem are that of an elephant, a house and a melon. These images seem unrelated, but they are in fact connected by a central topic. Later on in the poem, the narrator states that she has “eaten a bag of green apples” (Plath). This particular image evokes a certain sense of unease, because green apples are sour. Another image in this poem is that of money and a purse. The illustration of “new-minted” money gives the reader both a sense of starting anew and a feeling of want ...
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...he reader, and the one emotion that Shakespeare seems to be conveying to the reader is grand desire to have a child. The use of metaphors also supports this view in “Sonnet 7,” highlighting that having a son is extremely important, while “Metaphors” expresses the fact that the author is not sure whether she really wants to have a child or not. In the analysis of each poem it is clear that Sylvia Plath is feeling a lot of emotions, and is regretful and unsure about having a child. On the contrary, Shakespeare is regretful for not having a son. These differences reflect the distinctive views on having a child in the 20th century vs the 17th century. The view of having a child has evolved over time, changing from the notion that bearing a son is essential to life in the 17th century, to the modern view of not necessarily needing a son, or any children at all, as much.
In American society, the common stereotype is that the father has the role of the dominant figure in the household. Sylvia Plath and Sharon Olds may come across as two seemingly different poets, however, they are really quite similar, especially in their driving forces behind their writing styles in poetry. The lives of Plath and Olds are both expressive of the realities of a father-dominated family, in which both of these poets lost their fathers at a young age. This is significant because both poets have faced a similar traumatic event that has had everlasting effects on their adult womanhood, which is reflected in their writings. For both these woman, their accesses to father-daughter relationships were denied based on life circumstances. Ironically, their fathers were their muses for writing and are what made them the women they are today.
Imagery consists of descriptive language that can function as a way for the reader to better imagine which draws on the five senses, namely the details of taste, touch, sight, smell, and sound. As the author describes the feelings and emotions about letting go of their son, she uses imagery to describe the way they are feeling and their actions. For example, “Where two weeks ago, / holding a hand, he’d dawdle, dreamy, slow,” (lines 13-14). The example of imagery is the sense of touch when describing her son’s walk to school while holding his hand when he was not alone. This adds the meaning of the poem because he is comfortable walking with his parents but becomes more nervous and anxious when not comforted by them. The imagery adds to the effect of its
This poem is in many ways a social commentary, by Sylvia Plath, on the dilemmas modern society is faced with. Especially concerning roles of women as nurturers, mothers, wives and daughters. As well as their role in being virgins. Sylvia Plath definitely does not believe strongly in woman's role as a virgin, whether it be for purity or chastity's sake.
Image is everything. We can make even the most disturbing scene seem poetic by just adding a few birds, trees, or a river. Poetry is one of the mediums that use this mask. In Singapore by Mary Oliver, imagery plays a very important role. She writes a poem about a poor woman she saw in an airport in Singapore washing an ashtray in the toilet, seem like the woman was encompassing a beautiful scene in nature. A poem is always a beautiful thing, so she wrote a poem about this woman making her a metaphor to the serene image of nature. Although the poem seems to be a beautiful inspiration, it really is a way of her rationalizing her disturbed perception of the woman to nature in the poem. She also uses a very interruptive style of writing by jumping from what she is physically seeing, to what her mind's eye is creating.
Plath wrote many poems about motherhood. The poem you’re is about a baby in the mothers womb. She encounters many ‘for’s’ and ‘against’ about her unborn child. She uses many striking similes and metaphors. The poem is like a riddle, she never says the baby is unborn she just gives lots of hints. Plath’s positive and negative feelings about pregnancy are shown in the following quotes. A negative feeling, ‘gilled like a fish’ this shows that the baby can breathe in the mothers womb but if you think deeper it shows that the baby is a alien to the human race. A positive feeling is ‘jumpy as a Mexican bean’ this shows that the baby is joyful and full of energy.
During the early seventeenth century, poets were able to mourn the loss of a child publicly by writing elegies, or poems to lament the deceased. Katherine Philips and Ben Jonson were two poets who wrote the popular poems “On the Death of My Dearest Child, Hector Philips”, “On My First Son”, and “On My First Daughter” respectively. Although Philips and Jonson’s elegies contain obvious similarities, the differences between “On the Death of My Dearest Child” and “On My First Son” specifically are pronounced. The emotions displayed in the elegies are very distinct when considering the sex of the poet. The grief shown by a mother and father is a major theme when comparing the approach of mourning in the two elegies.
The poem “Snapping Beans” by Lisa Parker is about a girl who visits her grandmother. In the poem, the girl and the grandmother talk about their usual things, like how she is going in school. The girl responds with how school is going good, but she knows that her grandmother would not approve of her social circle and what they do and talk about. The narrator does an excellent job of using imagery and personification to help the reader understand on an emotional level of how the student may be feeling while sitting on the porch with her grandmother. One example of personification in this poem would be: “About the nights I cried into the familiar / heartsick panels of the quilt she made me,” (26-27). This use of personification indicates that the panels of the quilt are heartsick because the girl cries each night into her quilt because she misses her grandmother dearly. In Regina Barreca’s poem “Nighttime Fires, the narrator explains her complex view of her father. Imagery plays a big role in this poem because it vividly illustrates the girl’s impression of her father’s...
In poems, imagery is used to help get the writers’ message across in a language that is extremely visual. The poet wants
In the poem, “Daddy,” Sylvia Plath shows her character to have a love for her father as well as an obvious sense of resentment and anger towards him. She sets the tone through the structure of the poem along with her use of certain diction, imagery, and metaphors/similes. The author, Sylvia Plath, chooses words that demonstrate the characters hatred and bitterness towards the oppression she is living with under the control of her father and later, her husband. Plath’s word choice includes many words that a child might use. There is also an integration of German words which help set the tone as well. She creates imagery through her use of metaphors and similes which allow the reader to connect certain ideas and convey the dark, depressing tone of the poem.
In this poem, Maya Angelou was able to express one particular poetic device which i was able to identify throughout the poem. Her use of metaphor was mentioned quite often in the poem. When Angelou said
The first impression of Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” is disturbing and it proves to have fearful twist. The poem’s theme is one of sadness and lack of a paternal bond with one’s parent. The daughter is finding her closure with her father through this poem. This particular theme is portrayed through the use of dark and depressing imagery. Plath is skillful with her use of detail and emotional pull. The imagery brings up personal feelings which makes it easy to visualize the meanings that Plath intends to portray in the poem “Daddy”.
Poets use imagery to help convey a particular action, theme, or characters (Kriszner et al. 248). For instance, the theme for “Phenomenal Woman” is about a woman who is comfortable in her own skin. One can acknowledge the theme even more with the help of figurative language. The speaker mentions, “The sun of my smile” (Angelou). Instead of saying that her smile is great and bright, she uses personification to convey this instead. One is able to connect, visualize, and compare her smile to a sun on a hot Summer day. Metaphors are present in great numbers, “Then they swarm around me,/ a hive of honey bees” (Angelou). Bees are highly attracted to honey. The connection one can make is the speaker’s presence as she enters into a room attracts many. This helps one visualize what the speaker is trying to depict. Men are highly attracted and enlightened by her presence that she brings in a room or place. Angelou uses physical features throughout the
To her, the child’s eye is the storage of beauty, and he wish is to be at the same place as beauty. Beauty and happiness is compared to childhood mother’s inability to do much for her child. This gives us the aspect of how she lacked happiness in her life and also lacked to see any positive outcomes. This was one of the last poems that Plath wrote before her death.
One of Philip’s greatest tactics in this piece, to convey her intense grief and desolation, is her use of promising phrases about her son’s future, and her sheer joy about what it holds for him. In doing this she is able to build an emotional connection between herself and the reader, “Seaven years Childless Marriage past/ A Son, A Son is born at last…”(5,6), “As a long life promised,” (9), and “Full of good Spirits, Meen, and Aier,” (8). The emotional feelings that are withdrawn from these phrases all resonate with the reader, and allow us to become much more sensitive to not only her and what she is going through, but also her son and his lack of life. The repetition of “Son” is very effective in showing how elated she was, and actually makes the depressing realization that follows even darker and more troublesome.
A brief introduction to psychoanalysis is necessary before we can begin to interpret Plaths poems. Art is the expression of unconscious infantile desires and the strongest of these desires is the wish to “do away with his father and…to take his mother to wife” (Freud, “Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis 411).This is what Freud called the Oedipal conflict. For women the desire is of course reversed to killing the mother and marrying the father and is called the Electra complex. Children resolve this conflict by identifying with their same sex parent. Loss of a parent can prevent the normal resolution of the Oedipal conflict and result in a fixation or obsession with the lost object (object is the term used to define the internal representations of others). The desire to have the lost object back is also the desire for what Freud called primary narcissism. ...