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The poet had come to suffer from what is commonly known as "writer's block" or an inability to write
imaginatively.
She compares herself to a woman who has been pregnant but who keeps giving birth to stillborn children,
which look real enough but which have no life in them whatever.
A NOTE ON THE POET
Sylvia Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1932.
She was an intelligent child who had her first poem published when she was only eight. She displayed
a marked degree of sensitivity but sought perfection in all that she did.
Her father -- a college professor and a bee expert -- died of an illness when Sylvia was still young. He
apparently thought it was cancer but in reality it was a curable form of diabetes.
His untimely death appears to have scarred the young child's sensitive mind.
She entered Smith College on a scholarship in 1950 and, while there, wrote some 400 poems. During
her first year at the college, however, she attempted suicide through an overdose of sleeping pills.
She graduated from Smith College summa cum laude in 1955 and thereupon won a Fulbright
scholarship to study at Cambridge University in England.
While there, she married the English poet, Ted Hughes. Their marriage, however, would last a mere ten
years before Sylvia found herself divorced.
She was alone once more, but now in a small London flat. She was poor and with two children to look
after.
This was a foreign existence to one who had always been accustomed to the comforts of middle-class
life.
The winter of 1962 to 1963 was one of the coldest, during which time the poet was continually ill with flu.
She learnt first hand much about the harshness of life.
She nevertheless worked furiously in the very early mornings while the children slept, producing a poem
virtually every day.
Towards the end of that winter -- in February 1963 -- she committed suicide by gassing herself in her
kitchen. She was then only 30 years of age.
She had not yet won the recognition she so richly deserved as a poet. Like so many great artists, fame
would follow only after her death.
Have you looked at the questions in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer the following questions:
Comment on the sustained image which the poet uses throughout this poem. (4)
[Need help?]
The poet compares her writing of poetry to pregnancy but where the woman miscarries and her baby is
born dead. In this case, the poem is dead and, although it looks like a poem, it has no life in it.
It is indeed a very apt comparison because writing poetry is a pregnancy of thought, a mental act of
creation.
It is true, however, that much of what an artist writes, though technically correct, is of no value. It just does
not come alive. It is like the stillborn child: perfect in every way but nevertheless quite dead and useless.
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They grew their toes and fingers well enough,
Their little foreheads bulged with concentration.
If they missed out on walking about like people
It wasn't for any lack of mother-love.
- Explain carefully what point the poet is making in these rather graphic lines. (4)
[Need help?]
The poet is explaining that her poetry, like a stillborn foetus, is perfect in every way.
The style, the language, the metre is perfect -- "They grew their toes and fingers well enough".
Indeed, the poems are the result of a great deal of thought -- "Their little foreheads bulged with
concentration".
Although the poems are quite dead -- "They missed out on walking about like people" -- this fact
nevertheless has nothing to do with the poet's failure to apply herself -- "It wasn't for any lack of
mother-love".
The poet has done everything properly but the poems nevertheless are simply not alive.
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O I cannot explain what happened to them!
They are proper in shape and number and every part.
They sit so nicely in the pickling fluid!
- What point is the poet making here? (4)
[Need help?]
Sylvia Plath continues the comparison of creating poetry to the act of pregnancy.
Just as the stillborn foetus is perfect in every way, so are her poems perfect in language and style --
"They are proper in shape and number and every part".
Nevertheless her poems, like the foetus, are quite dead and sit there as a wonder for everyone to look
at -- just like the foetus which sits in a bottle of pickling fluid as a exhibit on some scientist's shelf.
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- Comment on the sarcasm in her words, "They sit so nicely in the pickling
fluid!" (4)
[Need help?]
The sarcasm is clearly to make us laugh. The image is quite bizarre. Indeed, some have described Sylvia
Plath as not fully adult -- a child -- even to use it.
Nevertheless, it shows in graphic style the poet's frustration at producing what she considers yet another
stillborn poem.
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And still the lungs won't fill and the heart won't start.
- What on earth does Sylvia Plath mean by this? (4)
[Need help?]
Just as the foetus is stillborn so that its lungs and heart will never work, so the poems are stillborn. They
have no life in them.
The lungs and heart of the poem are those elements which give life to the poem. And yet, like the stillborn
baby, they too are dead. The poem is therefore quite useless.
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It would be better if they were alive, and that's what they were.
- What does the poet mean? (4)
[Need help?]
Life is always better than death. A live piglet is better than a dead human.
In like manner, a poor poem which is nevertheless alive is better than a technically correct poem which
is dead.
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But they are dead, and their mother near dead with distraction,
And they stupidly stare and do not speak of her.
- The poet makes a bitter comment about the reality of poetry with these words. What is this
reality? (4)
[Need help?]
A poem is a work of art, the expression of the essence of the poet. A good poem speaks about the poet.
Indeed, the poet has poured her life into the poem.
In keeping with the image of the foetus, the mother has given her life for the child in her womb. The news,
however, that the foetus is dead will cause heartache for the mother -- "their mother near dead with
distraction".
In like manner, the poet has poured her heart and soul into the poem but the poem, like the stillborn
foetus, is dead -- "they stupidly stare". It fails to proclaim the essence that is the poet to the world
-- "do not speak of her".
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Sylvia Plath has been described as adolescent and immature in writing this poem. Would you
agree? (4)
[Need help?]
Critics of this poem seize on several points to underline their belief that this is a juvenile attempt at writing
poetry:
- The reference to the pigs and the fish;
- Her expression of having "a piggy and a fishy air";
- The description of the stillborn foetus sitting "so nicely in the pickling fluid";
- Her expression, "O I cannot explain" which critics claim is childish.
Do you agree with these critics? I don't. I personally think this is a most wonderful poem which is
humorous and yet explores a really serious topic in a lighthearted way.
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