Child-Sylvia Plath

Inability to create a flawed world for her children
1. She wishes the best for her child but she doesn't know how this can be achieved in the world she personally knows
  1. "...this troublous/ Wringing of hands, this dark/ Ceiling without a star
Awareness of the innocence and perfection of children
1. "Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing"
  1. Admires the beauty of her child's eye that is pure and untainted-something perfect
2. She calls her child a "Little/Stalk without wrinkle"
Wants to expose her children to all that is good and special
1. "I want to fill it with colour and ducks/Like the zoo of the new/ whose names you meditate"
Plath has a void within herself that nothing, not even her children could fill
1. The "dark ceiling without a star" is Plath's perception of the world, confusing, dark, and ultimately hopeless
  1. suffering with depression, mental anguish
  2. Metaphor of the way poet views her own life
Describes the child meditating upon new words,those animals and exotic flowers in a book
1. "April snowdrop, Indian pipe"
Wants to present her child with images that are fun and colourful
1. "I want to fill it with colour and ducks" and "grand classical images"
Written 2 weeks before she took her own life
1. Carefully phrased, exact
  1. unrhymed
Love is evident by mother
humour and inventiveness in the wishes expressed by the poet

Resource summary

	Created by aoife.conroy over 11 years ago