She begins this line by comparing her growing belly to the baking of bread. The motherhood could set a boundary on her bright future in literary works. According to The American Pregnancy Association, depression that is not treated can have potential dangerous risks to the mother and baby. Poetry has many ways in which a writer can make a series of words and lines form together to create a story with a meaning that the reader has to dig deep into the folds of the poem to find. When describing a pregnant woman, Plath takes a turn from the usual lovey dovey description. There is no doubt that she expresses a sort of melancholy to the situation, too, because she states that she's eaten a bag a green apples.
For instance, an elephant is valuable not for itself, but for its ivory. She mocks herself and her condition of her own pregnancy. A purse is insignificant; only the money which it holds matters. It is used to express the feelings. The number nine features a lot throughout the poem. In the fifth line the mood changes yet again to negative because the narrator starts talking abut herself more.
Mushrooms has many ways of looking at it, in which each gives a varying story. Green apples could also refer to their ripeness. So I beleive this poem is depicting her feelings about that. The first line offers at least two clues. Plath here may be referring to the same apples which she had eaten a bag full and obviously waiting for the further inevitable pain and suffering throughout whole life.
She calls herself to be only a means or mode or a platform for something. Some may also argue that it means that, like a calf begins to grow on its own outside the mother's body, this child too will grow on its own once it is born. The two images, of an elephant and a ponderous house, contained in the second line of Metaphors both refer to form. The word 'ivory' is used to represent bones, of the baby. The result is dissatisfaction, complain and resentment towards, children, husband and domestic tasks. Her specialties include writing fiction and nonfiction, and the history of the English language. I'm a riddle in nine syllables, An elephant, a ponderous house, A melon strolling on two tendrils.
When this line is read, it is the first you read about the actual baby, the previous lines only depict her body shape, while this one depicts what is inside of her. In the word 'metaphor' there are nine letters. It is to be… 1374 Words 6 Pages figures of speech such as metaphor, a writer can give the reader images and compare different ideas that have similar qualities that help the reader deduce what the poem is about. If she truly hated it, she would have killed the baby, and herself she was known to almost commit suicide multiple times, while also going through electro-shock therapy. The poem is written from her perspective, so, it is how she sees herself but I she is more happy than unhappy about the pregnancy. The main theme in this poem is an enormous hate felt towards the father.
The nine lines correspond to the nine months of pregnancy, and each line possesses nine syllables. Their relationship was difficult, she felt oppressed by her father. This group of metaphors did tell a story, and I believe it was a story about pregnancy. With the implications of these three metaphors, she boldly says she lacks maternal feeling which is, in general, natural during the period of gestation. Another metaphor compares her father to a shoe in which she lives. Like her eyes, her words are sharp, apt tools which brand her message on the brains and hearts of her readers.
Summary In this poem, the narrator is describing her pregnancy in metaphorical language, exploring an ambivalence about it. A melon is a larger object, which would not be able to stroll on two tendrils. It is a living thing suspended inside the bread making it grow, transforming it from the inside out, just as a woman is transformed by the life growing inside of her. She seemed focused on the symptoms and things that were occurring, rather than the fact that she was bringing another life into the world. This poem is divided into two parts. Elephants are depicted as very large and heavyweight creatures.
The poem compares a pregnant woman to many different items. The poet challenges her readers to find the correct answer. The red fruit, also indicates the biblical forbidden fruit apple. During 1957—58 Plath was an instructor in English at Smith College. The Collected Poems, which includes many previously unpublished poems, appeared in 1981 and received the 1982 for , making Plath the first to receive the honour posthumously.
This poem admits it, right off the bat: it's a riddle. Everything happening to her is for someone else, not for herself. It meant everything that her father used to be. It seems to infer that Plath realizes that her life will never be the same as it was before and that she is stuck for a train ride that is going to last for many years to come. The first example is a metaphor: The mirror compares itself to a lake. She did a play of nines with this poem which tells me that each word was carefully chosen to get nine syllables in each line. She has no choice in the matter.