Sylvia Plath's Child

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the darkness of a forest. The use of these images could represent mother and child and develop the idea of love and despair. In the third stanza, she meditates on her son's perfection. Like a “Little / Stalk without wrinkle” she wants her child to be perfect and spotless. She hopes that everything her child sees should be “grand and classical.” Here, the “Pool” that reflects stands for the “clear eye” of the child. The images are reflections of what the child sees. Together, the first three stanzas are expressions of her love, and unfiltered optimism for his future. When she imagines the world outside of him, she sees it as a wonderful and lovely experience waiting for him to explore.

Q1(B)

The fourth stanza details the contrast between the world she hopes for her son and the reality that she knows. She presents reality as something apprehensive and bleak. The poet doesn’t want her son to have a troubled life. The “Wringing of hands” represents the ...

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was the last two lines in the fourth stanza. “Not this troublous/Wringing of hands, this dark ceiling without a star”. The tragic last few lines were particularly hard hitting and poignant for me. . I think she may be referring to her anxiety of her own influence on her child. I picture an infant laying in a crib with his mother over him, wringing her hands, the dark ceiling without a star. These lines are very heartbreaking to me. I feel like everyone could relate to somewhat of how she feels. I found it incredibly sad, not only these lines, but the whole poem, that amidst such wonder and beauty, Plath was overcome by her own insecurities, her “ceiling without a star”.

While I ...

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