Here, nature is a provoker, an instigator - it does not want her to give up. Nature is also manifested in the bright red tulips which jolt the listless Plath from her post-operation stupor, insisting that she return to the world of the living. She also pulled from her personal life, writing of horse-riding on the English fields, in "Sheep in Fog" and "Ariel." In these cases, she uses the activity to suggest an otherworldly, mystical arena in which creative thought or unfettered emotion can be expressed. An image of the sea is also used in "Contusion," there suggesting a terrible sense of loss and loneliness. In "Full Fathom Five," her father is depicted as a sea god. The sea is usually associated with her father it is powerful, unpredictable, mesmerizing, and dangerous. She often evokes the sea and the fields to great effect. Images and allusions to nature permeate Plath's poetry. Most impressively, the work remains poetic and artistic - rather than political - because of her willing to admit ambivalence over all these expectations, admitting that both perspectives can prove a trap. She shied away from using genteel language and avoided writing only of traditionally "female" topics. She depicted the bleakness of the domestic scene, the disappointment of pregnancy, the despair over her husband's infidelity, her tortured relationship with her father, and her attempts to find her own creative voice amidst the crushing weight of patriarchy. Plath explored and challenged this reductionist tendency through her work, offering poems of intense vitality and stunning language. Women who ventured into the arts found it difficult to attain much attention for their work, and were often subject to marginalization and disdain. Women were expected to remain safely ensconced in the house, with motherhood as their ultimate joy and goal. Plath lived and worked in 1950s/1960s England and America, societies characterized by very strict gender norms. However, in her later poems, she seems finally able to transcend her status as victim by fully embracing her creative gifts ("Ariel"), metaphorically killing her father ("Daddy"), and committing suicide ("Lady Lazarus", "Edge").
For instance, "A Life" evokes a menacing and bleak future for Plath.
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Her poems from the "Colossus" era express her frustration over the strictures under which she operated. Plath felt relegated to a subordinate, "feminine" position which stripped from her any autonomy or power. Her husband also victimized her through the power he exerted as a man, both by assuming he should have the literary career and through his infidelity. In regards to her father, she realized she could never escape his terrible hold over her she expressed her sense of victimhood in "The Colossus" and "Daddy," using powerful metaphors and comparisons to limn a man who figured heavily in her psyche.
Her poetry can often be understood as response to these feelings of victimization, and many of the poems with a male figure can be interpreted as referring to any or all of these male forces in her life. Plath felt like a victim to the men in her life, including her father, her husband, and the great male-dominated literary world. This desire is exhilaratingly expressed in " Ariel," and bleakly and resignedly expressed in "Edge." Death is an immensely vivid aspect of Plath's work, both in metaphorical and literal representations.
THE COLOSSUS SYLVIA PLATH FREE
The poems suggest it would release her from the difficulties of life, and bring her transcendence wherein her mind could free itself from its corporeal cage. Suicide, though, is presented as a desirable alternative in many of these works. She sneers that everyone is used to crowding in and watching her self-destruct. In " Lady Lazarus," she claims that she has mastered the art of dying after trying to kill herself multiple times. In "Daddy," she goes further in claiming that she wants to kill him herself, finally exorcising his vicious hold over her mind and her work.ĭeath is also dealt with in terms of suicide, which eerily corresponds to her own suicide attempts and eventual death by suicide. In "The Colossus," she tries in vain to put him back together again and make him speak. In "Full Fathom Five," she speaks of his death and burial, mourning that she is forever exiled. One common theme is the void left by her father's death. Death is an ever-present reality in Plath's poetry, and manifests in several different ways.
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