The Triumvirate welcomes you!
"The term triumvirate (from Latin, "of three men") is commonly used to describe a political regime dominated by three powerful individuals" (Wiki).
Read and work the poem "Spinster" by Sylvia Plath. Engage in a discussion of the overall symbolism of the poem as well as the imagery and figurative language Plath used.
First, I think it's a bit ironic that this is our blog over Valentine's weekend...I pegged you for a romantic Mrs. Minor.
This poem is really sad to me. What bothers me is that there is no explanation of what causes the woman's shift in her view of the world. Instead of having a traumatic and/or depressing experience change her life like most tragic characters, she begins hating the world "of a sudden." To be honest, I'm not much of an optimist, but I think it should take more than some unruly leaves to became jaded and detached from the world.
The most powerful image evoked by Plath is that of the seasons. I liked when it she called winter's organization "scrupulously austere". Both of these words mean rigidly organized and strict, but they also carry a harshly negative connotation. The order of winter is almost cruel. What makes spring, fall and summer so beautiful is the freedom of nature.
Overall this poem is a cautionary tale. Of course we need some sense of order in our lives, but it's easy to cross a line. This woman began pushing people out of her life in order to preserve her precious organization. The conceit and personification of the seasons strongly evokes this message throughout the poem
I think that the other seasons (fall, spring and summer) symbolize difficult times in a relationship. A spinster is an unmarried elderly woman, and the poem seems to tell of her persistent desire to avoid love. It starts off in the spring with her taking a walk "with her latest suitor." Spring is a season that symbolizes a time of rebirth and romance. As she looks around her, sees love blossoming, and realizes that she fears the disarray it will bring to her life. Instead, she longs for the wintertime (solitude, singleness).
I liked the contrast between the spring and the winter. They are both personified as two polar individuals. Winter is simple, austere, disciplined, and "exact as a snowflake," with "each sentiment within border," while spring is unruly is vulgar.
Her home is a metaphor for her heart and she sets a "barricade of barb and check against mutinous weather" - in other words, puts up a wall to protect herself from the pain that accompanies love.
"And heart's frosty discipline" defines the woman's outlook on winter. Plath certainly does get around to creating the images, sentiments, and outlooks on two seasons: spring and winter - rebirth and death, color and black/white, diversity vs. more of the same.
The woman, it seems to me, is very reluctantly accepting the nature of spring. Flowers in the air, rebirth everywhere and she "found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck" by its sounds and sights. The texture of this sudden and, in her opinion, repulsive love in the air, I guess, evokes within her a sentiment of pain; a "tumult afflicted". She then follows the pain with an air of superiority, "let idiots/Reel giddy in bedlam spring".
Perhaps she's tired of spring's pain.
In the heat, the life of it all: the spring, and potentially the summer, she "longed for winter" and its discipline. The author never specifically mentioned summer or autumn, so I think the subject is observing the stark contrast between winter and spring...
So reluctantly in fact that she hides in her house from all the suitors, "sloven" "petals in disarray", and their inevitable Change.
This woman likes things that stay the same... Winter forever.
This woman does like things that stay the same, that eternal winter. She also likes the easy path, it takes work to have life, and love, and birth like spring. After all, I think if you ask most mothers they will say the most painful thing is giving birth. Similarly as I read in a poem in Spanish if you want a smooth liquor (we thought symbolically an easy life) then don't love. It takes work to produce the beauty of spring, and everything that spring stands for. It is easy to become disaffected like this woman. Winter does indeed have order, and it is easy to be sad and not look for anything to be happy about.
Rather than the description of a spinster I thought this was more the making of a spinster, the start of her apathetic life. Her view too has its attractions, it is a life with less loss and less downs, in exchange for fewer ups and successes of diminshed magnitude. I suppose it is a cautionary tale, and I don't want to end up like that lady, but there are worse things.
Spinster: a woman still unmarried beyond the usual age of marrying.
This poem is no surprise, this woman is a spinster. She's dark and gloomy *sarcastic voice* imagine that! With the bride to feel "intolerably struck" she may have come to the thought that she doesn't like "her lover" and that if she stayed on track and married when she was younger she could of married someone she wanted to be with. This man could be a last choice and she took it. A male counterpart to woman in this poem is a book character named Lewis Carey Longhorn, but I don't expect anyone to know who he is. Anyway to the seasons! Yes we know spring = love, which = unorganized life because love is unorganized as seen by the "disarray" of the flowers. This woman is afraid of love so she wishes for the clean black and white world of winter. I can tell she's a afraid of love because she runs away from it and hides in her seemingly orderly house. The house protects her from "curse, fist, threat- Or love, either."
In Sylvia Path's life she had suffered from a miscarriage, a sin-ridden husband, and attempted suicide.
I thought this poem was incredibly sad. Overall it seemed like a woman who was hurt terribly in a relationship and now sets "such a barricade of barb and check" that no person could penetrate it. The fact that she mentions "curse, fist, threat" firs instead of love almost seems to indicate she's experienced a lot of violence in her love life. So, to maybe shed some light James, this would be why she all of the sudden shuts down. She realizes she's letting herself become attached to someone who might hurt her, and the blossoming flowers remind her.
All of the imagery reminded me of a disgusted spinster's face. SHe doesn't like the "leaves' litter" or the "rank wilderness of fern and flower." There seemed a feeling of things being offkilter, sighting that the air was unbalanced, her lovers' walk was uneven, disarrayed petals, and irregular bird babel. She used visual imagery quite a lot with these descriptions. Because of all this unevenness, it seemed like the scene was spinning out of control.
This poem was really sad. But I think it's fair enough to say that love does make life more complicated. And for her, she didn't want chaotic and complicated, she wanted organized and plain.
I think her contrast between spring and winter was her strongest use of imagery/figurative language. Spring is the beginning; of new flowers blossoming and the light after months of darkness. But winter is sad and lonely; "of white and black/ice and rock." She decided she wanted the simple and more lonely life than the harder to earn love life.
And Sara, thanks for the info about her life. Those three facts obviously play a role in this poem. I think when you've become so hurt once, it's hard to just get up and keep trying.
I know a bit about Sylvia Plath, the author, because I’ve read The Bell Jar, the only novel she wrote before her suicide and after read both that book and the poem and knowing she is the author of both it is hard not to think the poem is rather depressing and touching on very hard issues, to say the least.
As Sharon said, the seasons seem to symbolize difficult times in certain relationships and how all relationships experience periods of difficulty. In the beginning of the poem it’s April and the middle of spring. The girl is sicken by the idea of spring, using words such as unbalance, irregular and disarray to describe the normally heavily anticipated season. Like you might expect from someone who dreads the season full of sunshine and new beginnings, the girl longs for the winter months. “How she longed for winter then! -- / Scrupulously austere in its order / Of white and black” (lines 13-15). Spring normally symbolizes the rebirth after the “austerity” of the winter, but when the girl looks around her and sees this she is revolted and simply isolates herself.
There is something Sharon said that I would like to expand on, which was: “her home is a metaphor for her heart and she sets a "barricade of barb and check against mutinous weather" - in other words, puts up a wall to protect herself from the pain that accompanies love”. Not only do I agree with Sharon but I also think the girl has put up this barricade around her heart because she just let go of a lover of some sorts and needs to do this in order to move on. This may explain her general bitterness as well.
I got the feeling that she was pushing relationships out of her life; pushing chaos out. Without relationships one is in control of their lives and what happens in it.
I agree completely with Sharon's analyzation of the section about winter and her latest suitor.
There is clearly some reason why this lady prevents herself from new love, but I have yet to figure it out. It be fear of pain, but I think I agree with Lauren about this one. I believe she has just let someone go. She wants to go back to the winter, with "heart's frosty discipline." She sets "a barricade of barb and check" against new love, "mutinous weather."
I thought the last lines were interesting: "As no mere insurgent man could hope to break/ With curse, fist, threat/ Or love, either." Love comes last. It's love that she's least afraid of? So, perhaps Natalie is right in that she fears violence. Or she could be speaking in nonliteral terms, but I'm not too sure what to make of it.
I don't think the girl in this poem was hurt, necessarily, but she's more afraid of being in love than anything else. She's afraid of the loss of control that may follow after falling in love. Love is the one emotion that humans have a difficulty handling or controlling.
As Sharon pointed out, the seasons represent different stages in a relationship. The spring symbolizes a time for new beginnings and birth. On the other hand, winter is more quiet and lonesome. I love how Plath describes the girl as being "intolerably struck / By the birds' irregular babel" (4). It's as if the sounds that accompany the births of birds and life physically and mentally struck her to realize the fear of falling in love.
In the second stanza, when the girl begins to find faults in her suitor, I like how "her lover's gestures unbalance the air" (8). The word "unbalance" adds to the disarray she would face if she were to fall in love; how it would disorganize and mess up her neatly arranged lifestyle.
"Scrupulously austere in order / Of white and black" (14). The third stanza continues to describe the characteristics of this girl. She must have everything clearly defined; everything in black and white or scrupulously austere.
I agree with Sharon and Michelle's analysis of the poem. The seasons definitely symbolize different types of relationships. Spring is more romantic and full of love, something that this girl is afraid of because she fears its "sloven" nature and the chaos it will bring (12). Winter, instead, is safe and secure with no risks and complete order.
I really liked stanza 4 for the tone. It marked the shift in the girl's behavior from walking with her suitor to being single forever.
I don't know if others noticed it, but there seemed to be a lot of military imagery in this poem, especially in Stanza 5. Words like "rank", "order", "border", "discipline", "treason", "barricade of barb and check", "mutinous" and "insurgent" all have connotations to the army and battle(10, 14, 16, 17, 22, 25, 26, 27). It suggests that this girl wants her life to be governed by strict rules and orders like an army regiment, instead of being open to new experiences and people. Just as a soldier would be wary of a stranger on the field approaching him and would "barricade" against "insurgent men", this girl is wary of any suitors or romance in her life. She even calls the weather "mutinous" for allowing such indiscipline. An extended metaphor?
To start out, I think “particular” is an interesting diction choice. That one word tells us that this girl is unlike others, and perhaps has a different take on life, and more specifically, marriage -- love in general.
The first stanza tells of spring, the season of rebirth and renewal. I think this is symbolic of love (or her heart). While she is walking, suddenly she becomes “intolerably struck / by the birds’ babel, etc.” Everything starts to annoy her, especially her “suitor.”
You get this incredible feeling that everything around is just really bugging her. The birds are chirping to loud. The leaves are all over the place, just cluttering up the ground. Her “lover’s” gestures are not to her liking; he doesn’t walk correctly in her eyes. She even judges the blooming flowers, all “in disarray.” “The whole season’s” appearance is careless and untidy -- but really she is talking about the season of love. Her and love are seemingly incompatible. To her, it is a “sloven,” chaotic matter that she just doesn’t want to put up with.
If spring symbolizes the time when love should be vibrant and bounding, then winter suggests the time when love is frozen, or dormant. She longs for this time. This suggests she wants nothing to do with love.
I like how Plath ended the poem: “…no mere insurgent man could hope to break With curse, fist, threat Or love, either.
I don’t really get the sense that she is afraid to love. It sounds like she doesn’t want to. This was written a while ago and I bet when women of this time period decided to marry they lost a lot of their freedoms. Maybe she doesn’t want to feel “confined”? The last line suggests that her heart is impenetrable, and will always be impervious to love. She was given the choice and opportunity to love, but she chose to live the rest of her life as a spinster.
She didn’t just want winter to come, she “LONGED” for it.
That's true. The fact that she does not want to love doesn't necessarily mean she fears love, or that she was hurt in the past. I guess I made that assumption because that's the typical story that lies behind negative love poems and songs.
First off, I agree with Sharon's interpretation completely. I like what Grace said about the fact that she has not been hurt, but maybe is just afraid to get hurt, or caught up in the stream of emotions that come with love.
Spring is a time like Sharon said of "rebirth" and "romance." When you think about it, it's not the season where you shun others and turn to solitude. Rather, it seems like a time of action and yearning. Plath uses two polarized seasons to really create a contrast between the lifestyle she desires and the lifestyle she is fleeing.
Diya, I too noticed all of the militaristic language, and honestly found it a bit comical. However, like you said, I think it portrays her desire to have a strict, abiding lifestyle with little room for new things.
I also think that the heart addressed in the last stanza is her heart. She protects it with a "barricade of barb and check" that "no mere insurgent man could hope to break." She's protecting herself and maintaining her solitude created from fear.
I get the idea that this woman is an extremely organized person, almost obsessively so. Her affinity for winter over the other seasons reflects this, as winter is "Scrupulously austere in its order" and spring is "sloven", i.e. sloppy and untidy. Because she seeks organization in everyhting, even in the weather and in the way her suitor walks, it is understandable that she should fear to become involved in a romantic relationship. Love is full of surprises and change, anyone seeking organization would stray from it. I think that the fundamental reason she is a spinster is that she is afraid of change, not because of a previous relationship, or because she is afraid of being hurt, but because she is abnormally repelled by change. This is sad to me, because she is going to miss out on many things in life, including love, because of this fear.
I believe that Spring and Winter are symbols, standing not just for Spring and Winter, but Chaos and Order. In Spring the bird's calls are “irregular babel” (5), the “leave's litter” (6), “petals in disarray” (11), and “unruly enough to pitch her five queenly wits into vulgur motley” (20-21). Obvious pains have been taken to establish Spring as chaotic, so it's not too much of a stretch to say that it represents Chaos. Contrastingly, Winter is “scrupulously austere in its order” (14) and “exact as a snowflake” (18). It's much less strongly implied, but it fits that Winter, the contrast of Spring, is Order, the contrast of Chaos. As my interpretation stands, the girl would be fleeing from Chaos into Order, but it's likely the girl is a symbol of her own. Alas, I have no leads to what she might be.
Plath's figurative language is good at being relevant to the poem. The girl's “five queenly wits” (20) were a clever way of referring to her five senses, but it mostly serves to accentuate her femininity. But it's mostly just clever. “Exact as a snowflake” (18) is another useful bit of figurative language, being most notable for feeding into the winter theme.
I felt that this poem was really sad. Like everyone else has said, I feel that the seasons in the poem are the main symbolisms. The poem starts out in spring, and the woman is described as judging spring as "sloven." I partially agree with what Connor said, but I believe that the description can be attributed more to the woman's association of the idea of a relationship. She seems like the type of person who is afraid to get into relationships, for fear that they will ruin her.
Likewise, the symbol of winter represents another phase in the relationship, maybe even the phase right after a relationship has ended. All is simple then, and the woman is free (in a sense). I especially liked the use of the phrase "Scrupulously austere" in this stanza.
The figurative language was also interesting. I noticed the militaristic language in the last stanza, and thought it was a great way of depicting the woman's personality post-relationship. Penetrating this darkness that is the woman's soul would require a feat of superhuman strength, both mentally and physically.
Here are some definitions, courtesy of Dictionary.com. I hope this helps!
Tumult: highly distressing agitation of mind or feeling; violent and noisy commotion
Scrupulously: showing a strict regard for what one considers right
Burgeoning: blossoming or sprouting
Bedlam: a scene or state of wild uproar and confusion.
Austere: strict; grave, sober, and serious
Motley: a medley
Wow, this poem is so negative and sad! I liked Sharon's and Natalie's analysis about the poem. These analyses were helpful and made me realize many important things about the poem. But I disagree about the reason why the woman it repealed by love. I don’t think that the she is really afraid of love/ to love, or that the violence and bad experiences in her life changed her view on love. I think she is a control freak and can't tolerate love's unpredictability and lack of discipline, which James, Sara, and others have already mentioned, making her view love as "intolerable".
Line 1 "this particular girl", seems to imply that the woman was just like any another young girl seeking love, but was one day was "intolerably struck" about how unpredictable and complicated love is. The tumult of spring, a season related with romance, rebirth, and disarray, like Sharon mentioned, makes her realize how much she dislikes disorder and not having control, so she makes the drastic decision to have nothing to do with love. “She longed for winter” because it’s predictable, simple, dull, and disciplined. The phrases "sentiment within border" and "heart's frosty discipline" are very important because they reveal her sentiments and beliefs about love. She does not want love because it is uncontrollable, undisciplined, and complicated. In the poem, there are many words related with the idea of order; unbalanced" (8), "disarray"(11), "neatly"(23, "discipline"(17), "exact"(18), "bedlam"(23)...you get the picture. The use of diction reinforces the idea that the woman wants order, simplicity, and predictability, as well as control. Love does not fall under that category, so sadly, she sets a "barricade of bard and cheek” against love.
I also thought it was interesting that the tone changes and becomes more negative and serious as the poem progresses. Another thing I noticed is that most of the words have negative connotations. The diction used in this poem definitely helps reveal the woman's attitude towards love.
I think that the season(s) smbolize what usually is thought of with them. April is in spring, and during spring, romance and love is in the air. But instead of embracing it. "found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck...the whole season, sloven." It also goes on to say that "she longed for winter." And they way she decribes winter sounds quite negative and cold. I also agree with Sharon that her house represents her heart. and once it's the time for love (spring) she wishes it would be winter, and sets up a barricade around her house, which is also her heart. You can see the heart in the last stanza ,"As no mere insurgent man could hope to break with curse, fist, threat or love, either."
Everyone did a great job analyzing the poem with the spring symbolism and the imagery. It is a sad poem, I have to agree, but it's a beautiful organic truth of affliction. If sadness is possibly seen as something beautiful, this, in my opinion, is one of those literature that exposes the beauty of the afflicted because it's real, it's true, it's only human.
First of all, the diction in this poem is ridiculous (I mean it in a positive connotation). She used words like "tumult", "gait", "sloven", "scrupulously", "austere", etc. to intensify the feeling as this woman "barricade[s]" her heart. In the third stanza, she uses juxtaposition of two things, "ice and rock", and "white and black" to depict her comfort level to be two dimensional, confined, guarded and protected and she even mocks at people who let themselves feel vulnerable and exposed to love. "Let idiots reel giddy in bedlam spring"(Line 22-23). And to me, this woman just doesn't care that her philosophy is colorless, she's comfortable and it's perfectly ok with her.
The obvious symbol that I picked up on clearer, I found in the last stanza. This stanza symbolizes her heart and the way she puts a "barricade of barb and check". A barb is a pointy object where it literally cuts through things. It's her defense mechanism against anything that tries to enter her heart.
This poem leaves you a big hole! It never mentioned anything to why this woman acts and thinks the way she does. I think there are a lot of opinions to what caused her to be this way. From what we learned in the poem Toads by Philip Larkin, the reason why we confine and limit ourselves, despite of our urge to surpass those mental boundaries, is fear. For this woman, maybe it's the fear of getting hurt, or maybe the fear of being happy, or maybe the fear of letting someone else take and be a part of her, or maybe the fear of losing full control, or maybe the fear of (fill in the blank). No one can really know, but we can trace those reasons back to absolute affliction of fear.
I think, I could be totally wrong, the reason why Plath leaves this ambiguity is because it's different for everyone. Life and the way the heart feels and sees things is uniquely complicated for every person. I think that is why I think this poem is beautiful because it reveal the natural human trait of the way the heart reacts and response to intense, vulnerable situations.
I think Spring itself is the most emblematic symbol in the poem. I inferred spring to be the idea of change, "tumult" She looks to spring as a mode of disarray as a burden of something extra ordinary. Then the winter is a direct contrast, representing order, the same. In this woman's choice of leaving a life of love, she makes her decision on the premise of change and order. She looks forward to the stillness and monotony of the winter and so she chooses to leave this man and become a spinster.
This disarray, "vulgar motley" is something she condemns idiots to observe. She condemns love and its jubilant nature. She fortifies her heart and closes it to everything incl8uding the most powerful of which, love.
For one reason or another, this woman begins to hate and detest the world. Her heart turned to ice, as reference in line 17 ( 'A heart's frosty discipline'). She thinks that others are 'idiots' (line 23), and in that last two lines it says that a man couldn't invade her home phyically or get to her emotionally. What happened to this woman that would make her so cut off?
What confuses me is the fourth stanza, where it talks about a 'burgeoning' ( or budding?) of a gross display of her wits. What the stanza means is an entire mystery to me. Does this stanza mean that the world is so chaotic that she left, choosing not to betray what she was taught about socializing?
In the second stanza, she hates spring or does she hate herself? It seems like she can't do anything right, everything seeming 'unbalanced', 'uneven', and 'disarray'. This contridicts the next stanza about winter, where everything is black and white, literally. I think that how she wanted the world, clear cut, black and white, with a clear distiction of what everything is. And in winter, everything lacks color, which is mean to say that there is a lack of life, which may be what she sees in life; still, unmoving, colorless, and dead.
This spinster seems to view spring in quite an opposite way than from the ordinary thoughts that occur from spring. The spring seems to be fresh, and full of rebirth, and beauty. Although this female uses adjectives throughout lines five through twelve that suggests that she views 'spring' much differently than the average person. I agree with others when they have said that the spring must represent the beginning phases in a relationship. She realizes that she is not happy to be once again starting another annual relationship that probably will not amount to anything. She wants to go back a couple months, or back to her old relationship in winter where things were clear and evident, nothing new. The last two stanzas are where she seems to be criticizing those that enjoy the spring, and that she knows better. The words she uses provide evidence that she has had experience in the spring, and it truly is nothing to marvel at.
I received the impression that this was about a woman that has finally found a partner and they are walking down the aisle on their "ceremonious" wedding day. For whatever reason she flips out and decides that she doesn't want to marry him, probably because she is afraid of change since words like irregular, litter, and disarray are used to describe the aspects of spring.
She runs away on her wedding day because marriage undoubtedly brings about great change and thats what she's afraid of. She therefore barricades herself in her house and refuses to let any men into her life emotionally.
I think Spring could also be representative of her youthful years and she is regretful for having not finding a partner during the time period when hormones are buzzing. That time in her life has slipped by and after years of searching she all "of a sudden" realizes how dramatically it would affect her static lifestyle and so she runs away.
In this poem I see a woman who is afraid to love. The last three lines in this poem gave me a sense of her fear, “As no mere insurgent man could hope to break with curse, fist, threat or love, either.” It feels like she has been through a stressful relationship and is not willing to open up her heart to anyone anymore. The “irregular” and “unbalance” spring is very much like love, very much unpredictable and complicated. Spring is suppose to be a joyful time of year where everything start to grow, yet to Plath finds it intolerable. She chooses the orderly winter, where everything is “of white and black” (either one way or the other.) I find it very odd, since winter is often representing death and isolation. She prefers to be alone and caged in to protect herself from what she think is harm.
I thought everyone did a great job analyzing the poem. I especially agree with Grace and how the woman was afraid of falling in love instead of getting hurt. Like Sharon already said, the seasons in the poem represent the stages of love/ relationship. When she said that she "longed for winter" (13), to me it felt like she wanted to romance and the love to die. Winter is the coldest of the seasons and things tend to die during winter. This could symbolize the woman wanting all the love in the air to die. Like others have already commented, a spinster is a woman that is still unmarried when she should have already been married. ( dont know if that made sense....). This makes it seem that the woman has never even been in love. She is too afraid to take that chance and go for it.
This whole poem has a cold tone to it. It almost seems dead like the twigs on the branch of a tree. Plath creates this effect by using choice diction such as "struck", "tumult", "rank", "frosty", and maybe makes the poem even sound bitter like the coldness of the winter biting at your face.
Although it has been said before, I must contend that most of the interesting nature of this poem is derived from by use of figurative language in the comparison of seasons to love. Sylvia Plath relates an abstract concept which nobody can truly understand; love, to something that we understand and feel everyday and know is real; the seasons. Love is compared to the season of spring through its unorderly, and exciting nature. This is juxtaposed against the feeling of winter, and the emotions that come along with it; a sense of cold, black and white, clear-cut relations.
Plath symbolizes love with spring and being single with winter. She notices in April, a month in the middle of spring, for the first time the signs on spring: "the birds' irregular babel and the leaves' litter." She sees love as something that causes disorder, "her lover's gestures unbalance the air, His gait stray uneven." Spring is also messy: "She judged petals in disarray, The whole season, sloven." The speaker prefers the order of winter. It is "scrupulously austere," extremely self-disciplined. She doesn't like to have feelings. In winter "each sentiment [is] within border, And heart's frosty discipline" keeps her from having to feel anything. The speaker would prefer not to have this "burgeoning" love betray her regimen of going through life without feelings. she would rather "Let idiots Reel giddy in bedlam spring." She herself would "barricade" herself in her "house" so that no man could break in
I agree with everyone else in that the speaker is comparing the seasons with love. Winter is cold and kind of loveless. However, it is simple and straightforward, "exact as a snowflake". The speaker does not want to deal with the complexities of spring and of love such as the "petals in disarray". Instead of dealing with these complexities, the speaker tries to keep herself in a constant winter by barracading herself in her home.
I believe that this poem isn't just speaking about a women that does not want love, but Plath is trying to address the foolishness of people who are afraid of conflict and complexity in their life. Plath wants to show that all seasons are necessary in a year just like conflict is necessary in life.
It is somewhat funny because this poem reminds me of someone. No names needed though! Basically, I am taking that this woman get bored with things quickly, or makes herself bored to protect herself.
One gets a sense for her desire for everything to eb defined and in it's place when she says that she "longs for winter" and "its order of white and black". Everything needs to be "exact as a snowflake". Now, I took love as being a part of this poem and in all of the descriptions, I found this woman to be someone searching for the most "perfect" love on earth. Sadly, there is nothing perfect. This is where the sad vibe is coming from. One feels as though this woman is helpless and hopeless.
The change of seasons is perhaps the woman's hope of something new and changed. But at the same time, it feels like she does not want the change. Speaking of which, Erik, if you're going to generalize the fear of change, make sure that you are careful and say conservative rather than republican. Those two things kind of intertwine naturally, but conservative theory is what resists change. Hahah, back to the poem!
Well, The last stanza was most powerful for me. You get the overall sense of her "barricade of barb and cheek" she sets up to keep any "insurgent man" from coming close to her.
She fears love, and protects herself from her fear.
I approached this poem first by defining words that I was unsure of. A spinster is a word used to describe an elderly, unmarried woman. Babel is a confused mixture of sounds. Gait is a manner of walking and sloven also means characterized by disorder. Motley means expressing a great diversity of elements.
I think it’s very interesting that the subject of the poem found the lack of order apparent in the bird’s singing and the leaves to be tumultuous and was affected so profoundly as indicated by the first stanza. This poem’s topic however is very obvious. It is about a woman who fears love and affection because it is an irrational concept that cannot be quantified precisely. The randomness and sporadic nature of love and affection drains her of courage and will. She chooses to sacrifice beauty for order, preferring “winter’ to “spring”. I spent a lot of time thinking whether or not this poem was patently feministic, but I concluded that it was actually in many ways the opposite. I think Sylvia Plath is actually condemning the recluse nature of this woman who chooses to live an orderly life instead of seizing the moment and detaching herself from the comfort of order in favor of new satisfactions. The imagery in this poem is the strongest when Plath is describing the seasons. As a reader, it helps me to juxtapose winter and spring quite effectively and view them as nearly opposite of each other with one being very mundane, orderly, and foreboding whereas the other is diverse, rich, and beautiful. I think winter in many ways symbolizes solitude in this poem and spring symbolizes love.
34 comments:
First, I think it's a bit ironic that this is our blog over Valentine's weekend...I pegged you for a romantic Mrs. Minor.
This poem is really sad to me. What bothers me is that there is no explanation of what causes the woman's shift in her view of the world. Instead of having a traumatic and/or depressing experience change her life like most tragic characters, she begins hating the world "of a sudden." To be honest, I'm not much of an optimist, but I think it should take more than some unruly leaves to became jaded and detached from the world.
The most powerful image evoked by Plath is that of the seasons. I liked when it she called winter's organization "scrupulously austere". Both of these words mean rigidly organized and strict, but they also carry a harshly negative connotation. The order of winter is almost cruel. What makes spring, fall and summer so beautiful is the freedom of nature.
Overall this poem is a cautionary tale. Of course we need some sense of order in our lives, but it's easy to cross a line. This woman began pushing people out of her life in order to preserve her precious organization. The conceit and personification of the seasons strongly evokes this message throughout the poem
I think that the other seasons (fall, spring and summer) symbolize difficult times in a relationship. A spinster is an unmarried elderly woman, and the poem seems to tell of her persistent desire to avoid love. It starts off in the spring with her taking a walk "with her latest suitor." Spring is a season that symbolizes a time of rebirth and romance. As she looks around her, sees love blossoming, and realizes that she fears the disarray it will bring to her life. Instead, she longs for the wintertime (solitude, singleness).
I liked the contrast between the spring and the winter. They are both personified as two polar individuals. Winter is simple, austere, disciplined, and "exact as a snowflake," with "each sentiment within border," while spring is unruly is vulgar.
Her home is a metaphor for her heart and she sets a "barricade of barb and check against mutinous weather" - in other words, puts up a wall to protect herself from the pain that accompanies love.
"And heart's frosty discipline" defines the woman's outlook on winter. Plath certainly does get around to creating the images, sentiments, and outlooks on two seasons: spring and winter - rebirth and death, color and black/white, diversity vs. more of the same.
The woman, it seems to me, is very reluctantly accepting the nature of spring. Flowers in the air, rebirth everywhere and she "found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck" by its sounds and sights. The texture of this sudden and, in her opinion, repulsive love in the air, I guess, evokes within her a sentiment of pain; a "tumult afflicted". She then follows the pain with an air of superiority, "let idiots/Reel giddy in bedlam spring".
Perhaps she's tired of spring's pain.
In the heat, the life of it all: the spring, and potentially the summer, she "longed for winter" and its discipline. The author never specifically mentioned summer or autumn, so I think the subject is observing the stark contrast between winter and spring...
So reluctantly in fact that she hides in her house from all the suitors, "sloven" "petals in disarray", and their inevitable Change.
This woman likes things that stay the same... Winter forever.
I like to ramble.
This woman does like things that stay the same, that eternal winter. She also likes the easy path, it takes work to have life, and love, and birth like spring. After all, I think if you ask most mothers they will say the most painful thing is giving birth. Similarly as I read in a poem in Spanish if you want a smooth liquor (we thought symbolically an easy life) then don't love. It takes work to produce the beauty of spring, and everything that spring stands for. It is easy to become disaffected like this woman. Winter does indeed have order, and it is easy to be sad and not look for anything to be happy about.
Rather than the description of a spinster I thought this was more the making of a spinster, the start of her apathetic life. Her view too has its attractions, it is a life with less loss and less downs, in exchange for fewer ups and successes of diminshed magnitude. I suppose it is a cautionary tale, and I don't want to end up like that lady, but there are worse things.
Spinster: a woman still unmarried beyond the usual age of marrying.
This poem is no surprise, this woman is a spinster. She's dark and gloomy *sarcastic voice* imagine that!
With the bride to feel "intolerably struck" she may have come to the thought that she doesn't like "her lover" and that if she stayed on track and married when she was younger she could of married someone she wanted to be with. This man could be a last choice and she took it. A male counterpart to woman in this poem is a book character named Lewis Carey Longhorn, but I don't expect anyone to know who he is. Anyway to the seasons! Yes we know spring = love, which = unorganized life because love is unorganized as seen by the "disarray" of the flowers. This woman is afraid of love so she wishes for the clean black and white world of winter. I can tell she's a afraid of love because she runs away from it and hides in her seemingly orderly house. The house protects her from "curse, fist, threat- Or love, either."
In Sylvia Path's life she had suffered from a miscarriage, a sin-ridden husband, and attempted suicide.
I thought this poem was incredibly sad. Overall it seemed like a woman who was hurt terribly in a relationship and now sets "such a barricade of barb and check" that no person could penetrate it. The fact that she mentions "curse, fist, threat" firs instead of love almost seems to indicate she's experienced a lot of violence in her love life. So, to maybe shed some light James, this would be why she all of the sudden shuts down. She realizes she's letting herself become attached to someone who might hurt her, and the blossoming flowers remind her.
All of the imagery reminded me of a disgusted spinster's face. SHe doesn't like the "leaves' litter" or the "rank wilderness of fern and flower." There seemed a feeling of things being offkilter, sighting that the air was unbalanced, her lovers' walk was uneven, disarrayed petals, and irregular bird babel. She used visual imagery quite a lot with these descriptions. Because of all this unevenness, it seemed like the scene was spinning out of control.
This poem was really sad.
But I think it's fair enough to say that love does make life more complicated. And for her, she didn't want chaotic and complicated, she wanted organized and plain.
I think her contrast between spring and winter was her strongest use of imagery/figurative language. Spring is the beginning; of new flowers blossoming and the light after months of darkness. But winter is sad and lonely; "of white and black/ice and rock."
She decided she wanted the simple and more lonely life than the harder to earn love life.
And Sara, thanks for the info about her life. Those three facts obviously play a role in this poem. I think when you've become so hurt once, it's hard to just get up and keep trying.
I know a bit about Sylvia Plath, the author, because I’ve read The Bell Jar, the only novel she wrote before her suicide and after read both that book and the poem and knowing she is the author of both it is hard not to think the poem is rather depressing and touching on very hard issues, to say the least.
As Sharon said, the seasons seem to symbolize difficult times in certain relationships and how all relationships experience periods of difficulty. In the beginning of the poem it’s April and the middle of spring. The girl is sicken by the idea of spring, using words such as unbalance, irregular and disarray to describe the normally heavily anticipated season. Like you might expect from someone who dreads the season full of sunshine and new beginnings, the girl longs for the winter months. “How she longed for winter then! -- / Scrupulously austere in its order / Of white and black” (lines 13-15). Spring normally symbolizes the rebirth after the “austerity” of the winter, but when the girl looks around her and sees this she is revolted and simply isolates herself.
There is something Sharon said that I would like to expand on, which was: “her home is a metaphor for her heart and she sets a "barricade of barb and check against mutinous weather" - in other words, puts up a wall to protect herself from the pain that accompanies love”. Not only do I agree with Sharon but I also think the girl has put up this barricade around her heart because she just let go of a lover of some sorts and needs to do this in order to move on. This may explain her general bitterness as well.
I got the feeling that she was pushing relationships out of her life; pushing chaos out. Without relationships one is in control of their lives and what happens in it.
I agree completely with Sharon's analyzation of the section about winter and her latest suitor.
There is clearly some reason why this lady prevents herself from new love, but I have yet to figure it out. It be fear of pain, but I think I agree with Lauren about this one. I believe she has just let someone go. She wants to go back to the winter, with "heart's frosty discipline." She sets "a barricade of barb and check" against new love, "mutinous weather."
I thought the last lines were interesting:
"As no mere insurgent man could hope to break/ With curse, fist, threat/ Or love, either."
Love comes last. It's love that she's least afraid of? So, perhaps Natalie is right in that she fears violence. Or she could be speaking in nonliteral terms, but I'm not too sure what to make of it.
I don't think the girl in this poem was hurt, necessarily, but she's more afraid of being in love than anything else. She's afraid of the loss of control that may follow after falling in love. Love is the one emotion that humans have a difficulty handling or controlling.
As Sharon pointed out, the seasons represent different stages in a relationship. The spring symbolizes a time for new beginnings and birth. On the other hand, winter is more quiet and lonesome. I love how Plath describes the girl as being "intolerably struck / By the birds' irregular babel" (4). It's as if the sounds that accompany the births of birds and life physically and mentally struck her to realize the fear of falling in love.
In the second stanza, when the girl begins to find faults in her suitor, I like how "her lover's gestures unbalance the air" (8). The word "unbalance" adds to the disarray she would face if she were to fall in love; how it would disorganize and mess up her neatly arranged lifestyle.
"Scrupulously austere in order / Of white and black" (14). The third stanza continues to describe the characteristics of this girl. She must have everything clearly defined; everything in black and white or scrupulously austere.
I agree with Sharon and Michelle's analysis of the poem. The seasons definitely symbolize different types of relationships. Spring is more romantic and full of love, something that this girl is afraid of because she fears its "sloven" nature and the chaos it will bring (12). Winter, instead, is safe and secure with no risks and complete order.
I really liked stanza 4 for the tone. It marked the shift in the girl's behavior from walking with her suitor to being single forever.
I don't know if others noticed it, but there seemed to be a lot of military imagery in this poem, especially in Stanza 5. Words like "rank", "order", "border", "discipline", "treason", "barricade of barb and check", "mutinous" and "insurgent" all have connotations to the army and battle(10, 14, 16, 17, 22, 25, 26, 27). It suggests that this girl wants her life to be governed by strict rules and orders like an army regiment, instead of being open to new experiences and people. Just as a soldier would be wary of a stranger on the field approaching him and would "barricade" against "insurgent men", this girl is wary of any suitors or romance in her life. She even calls the weather "mutinous" for allowing such indiscipline. An extended metaphor?
Hmm, that might be a stretch...I don't know??
HI--
To start out, I think “particular” is an interesting diction choice. That one word tells us that this girl is unlike others, and perhaps has a different take on life, and more specifically, marriage -- love in general.
The first stanza tells of spring, the season of rebirth and renewal. I think this is symbolic of love (or her heart). While she is walking, suddenly she becomes “intolerably struck / by the birds’ babel, etc.” Everything starts to annoy her, especially her “suitor.”
You get this incredible feeling that everything around is just really bugging her. The birds are chirping to loud. The leaves are all over the place, just cluttering up the ground. Her “lover’s” gestures are not to her liking; he doesn’t walk correctly in her eyes. She even judges the blooming flowers, all “in disarray.” “The whole season’s” appearance is careless and untidy -- but really she is talking about the season of love. Her and love are seemingly incompatible. To her, it is a “sloven,” chaotic matter that she just doesn’t want to put up with.
If spring symbolizes the time when love should be vibrant and bounding, then winter suggests the time when love is frozen, or dormant. She longs for this time. This suggests she wants nothing to do with love.
I like how Plath ended the poem:
“…no mere insurgent man could hope to break
With curse, fist, threat
Or love, either.
I don’t really get the sense that she is afraid to love. It sounds like she doesn’t want to. This was written a while ago and I bet when women of this time period decided to marry they lost a lot of their freedoms. Maybe she doesn’t want to feel “confined”? The last line suggests that her heart is impenetrable, and will always be impervious to love. She was given the choice and opportunity to love, but she chose to live the rest of her life as a spinster.
She didn’t just want winter to come, she “LONGED” for it.
That's true. The fact that she does not want to love doesn't necessarily mean she fears love, or that she was hurt in the past. I guess I made that assumption because that's the typical story that lies behind negative love poems and songs.
First off, I agree with Sharon's interpretation completely. I like what Grace said about the fact that she has not been hurt, but maybe is just afraid to get hurt, or caught up in the stream of emotions that come with love.
Spring is a time like Sharon said of "rebirth" and "romance." When you think about it, it's not the season where you shun others and turn to solitude. Rather, it seems like a time of action and yearning. Plath uses two polarized seasons to really create a contrast between the lifestyle she desires and the lifestyle she is fleeing.
Diya, I too noticed all of the militaristic language, and honestly found it a bit comical. However, like you said, I think it portrays her desire to have a strict, abiding lifestyle with little room for new things.
I also think that the heart addressed in the last stanza is her heart. She protects it with a "barricade of barb and check" that "no mere insurgent man could hope to break." She's protecting herself and maintaining her solitude created from fear.
That's true... the fact that she wants nothing to do with love probably does stem from the fact that she completely fears it.
I guess I really only looked at the way she views love now, not the thing that caused her to feel that way in the first place.
I get the idea that this woman is an extremely organized person, almost obsessively so. Her affinity for winter over the other seasons reflects this, as winter is "Scrupulously austere in its order" and spring is "sloven", i.e. sloppy and untidy. Because she seeks organization in everyhting, even in the weather and in the way her suitor walks, it is understandable that she should fear to become involved in a romantic relationship. Love is full of surprises and change, anyone seeking organization would stray from it. I think that the fundamental reason she is a spinster is that she is afraid of change, not because of a previous relationship, or because she is afraid of being hurt, but because she is abnormally repelled by change. This is sad to me, because she is going to miss out on many things in life, including love, because of this fear.
This lady is obviously Republican because she fears Change.
I believe that Spring and Winter are symbols, standing not just for Spring and Winter, but Chaos and Order. In Spring the bird's calls are “irregular babel” (5), the “leave's litter” (6), “petals in disarray” (11), and “unruly enough to pitch her five queenly wits into vulgur motley” (20-21). Obvious pains have been taken to establish Spring as chaotic, so it's not too much of a stretch to say that it represents Chaos. Contrastingly, Winter is “scrupulously austere in its order” (14) and “exact as a snowflake” (18). It's much less strongly implied, but it fits that Winter, the contrast of Spring, is Order, the contrast of Chaos.
As my interpretation stands, the girl would be fleeing from Chaos into Order, but it's likely the girl is a symbol of her own. Alas, I have no leads to what she might be.
Plath's figurative language is good at being relevant to the poem. The girl's “five queenly wits” (20) were a clever way of referring to her five senses, but it mostly serves to accentuate her femininity. But it's mostly just clever. “Exact as a snowflake” (18) is another useful bit of figurative language, being most notable for feeding into the winter theme.
I felt that this poem was really sad. Like everyone else has said, I feel that the seasons in the poem are the main symbolisms. The poem starts out in spring, and the woman is described as judging spring as "sloven." I partially agree with what Connor said, but I believe that the description can be attributed more to the woman's association of the idea of a relationship. She seems like the type of person who is afraid to get into relationships, for fear that they will ruin her.
Likewise, the symbol of winter represents another phase in the relationship, maybe even the phase right after a relationship has ended. All is simple then, and the woman is free (in a sense). I especially liked the use of the phrase "Scrupulously austere" in this stanza.
The figurative language was also interesting. I noticed the militaristic language in the last stanza, and thought it was a great way of depicting the woman's personality post-relationship. Penetrating this darkness that is the woman's soul would require a feat of superhuman strength, both mentally and physically.
Here are some definitions, courtesy of Dictionary.com. I hope this helps!
Tumult: highly distressing agitation of mind or feeling; violent and noisy commotion
Scrupulously: showing a strict regard for what one considers right
Burgeoning: blossoming or sprouting
Bedlam: a scene or state of wild uproar and confusion.
Austere: strict; grave, sober, and serious
Motley: a medley
Wow, this poem is so negative and sad! I liked Sharon's and Natalie's analysis about the poem. These analyses were helpful and made me realize many important things about the poem. But I disagree about the reason why the woman it repealed by love. I don’t think that the she is really afraid of love/ to love, or that the violence and bad experiences in her life changed her view on love. I think she is a control freak and can't tolerate love's unpredictability and lack of discipline, which James, Sara, and others have already mentioned, making her view love as "intolerable".
Line 1 "this particular girl", seems to imply that the woman was just like any another young girl seeking love, but was one day was "intolerably struck" about how unpredictable and complicated love is. The tumult of spring, a season related with romance, rebirth, and disarray, like Sharon mentioned, makes her realize how much she dislikes disorder and not having control, so she makes the drastic decision to have nothing to do with love. “She longed for winter” because it’s predictable, simple, dull, and disciplined. The phrases "sentiment within border" and "heart's frosty discipline" are very important because they reveal her sentiments and beliefs about love. She does not want love because it is uncontrollable, undisciplined, and complicated. In the poem, there are many words related with the idea of order; unbalanced" (8), "disarray"(11), "neatly"(23, "discipline"(17), "exact"(18), "bedlam"(23)...you get the picture. The use of diction reinforces the idea that the woman wants order, simplicity, and predictability, as well as control. Love does not fall under that category, so sadly, she sets a "barricade of bard and cheek” against love.
I also thought it was interesting that the tone changes and becomes more negative and serious as the poem progresses. Another thing I noticed is that most of the words have negative connotations. The diction used in this poem definitely helps reveal the woman's attitude towards love.
I think that the season(s) smbolize what usually is thought of with them. April is in spring, and during spring, romance and love is in the air. But instead of embracing it. "found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck...the whole season, sloven."
It also goes on to say that "she longed for winter." And they way she decribes winter sounds quite negative and cold.
I also agree with Sharon that her house represents her heart. and once it's the time for love (spring) she wishes it would be winter, and sets up a barricade around her house, which is also her heart. You can see the heart in the last stanza ,"As no mere insurgent man could hope to break with curse, fist, threat or love, either."
Everyone did a great job analyzing the poem with the spring symbolism and the imagery. It is a sad poem, I have to agree, but it's a beautiful organic truth of affliction. If sadness is possibly seen as something beautiful, this, in my opinion, is one of those literature that exposes the beauty of the afflicted because it's real, it's true, it's only human.
First of all, the diction in this poem is ridiculous (I mean it in a positive connotation). She used words like "tumult", "gait", "sloven", "scrupulously", "austere", etc. to intensify the feeling as this woman "barricade[s]" her heart. In the third stanza, she uses juxtaposition of two things, "ice and rock", and "white and black" to depict her comfort level to be two dimensional, confined, guarded and protected and she even mocks at people who let themselves feel vulnerable and exposed to love. "Let idiots reel giddy in bedlam spring"(Line 22-23). And to me, this woman just doesn't care that her philosophy is colorless, she's comfortable and it's perfectly ok with her.
The obvious symbol that I picked up on clearer, I found in the last stanza. This stanza symbolizes her heart and the way she puts a "barricade of barb and check". A barb is a pointy object where it literally cuts through things. It's her defense mechanism against anything that tries to enter her heart.
This poem leaves you a big hole! It never mentioned anything to why this woman acts and thinks the way she does. I think there are a lot of opinions to what caused her to be this way. From what we learned in the poem Toads by Philip Larkin, the reason why we confine and limit ourselves, despite of our urge to surpass those mental boundaries, is fear. For this woman, maybe it's the fear of getting hurt, or maybe the fear of being happy, or maybe the fear of letting someone else take and be a part of her, or maybe the fear of losing full control, or maybe the fear of (fill in the blank). No one can really know, but we can trace those reasons back to absolute affliction of fear.
I think, I could be totally wrong, the reason why Plath leaves this ambiguity is because it's different for everyone. Life and the way the heart feels and sees things is uniquely complicated for every person. I think that is why I think this poem is beautiful because it reveal the natural human trait of the way the heart reacts and response to intense, vulnerable situations.
I think Spring itself is the most emblematic symbol in the poem. I inferred spring to be the idea of change, "tumult" She looks to spring as a mode of disarray as a burden of something extra ordinary. Then the winter is a direct contrast, representing order, the same. In this woman's choice of leaving a life of love, she makes her decision on the premise of change and order. She looks forward to the stillness and monotony of the winter and so she chooses to leave this man and become a spinster.
This disarray, "vulgar motley" is something she condemns idiots to observe. She condemns love and its jubilant nature. She fortifies her heart and closes it to everything incl8uding the most powerful of which, love.
For one reason or another, this woman begins to hate and detest the world. Her heart turned to ice, as reference in line 17 ( 'A heart's frosty discipline'). She thinks that others are 'idiots' (line 23), and in that last two lines it says that a man couldn't invade her home phyically or get to her emotionally. What happened to this woman that would make her so cut off?
What confuses me is the fourth stanza, where it talks about a 'burgeoning' ( or budding?) of a gross display of her wits. What the stanza means is an entire mystery to me. Does this stanza mean that the world is so chaotic that she left, choosing not to betray what she was taught about socializing?
In the second stanza, she hates spring or does she hate herself? It seems like she can't do anything right, everything seeming 'unbalanced', 'uneven', and 'disarray'. This contridicts the next stanza about winter, where everything is black and white, literally. I think that how she wanted the world, clear cut, black and white, with a clear distiction of what everything is. And in winter, everything lacks color, which is mean to say that there is a lack of life, which may be what she sees in life; still, unmoving, colorless, and dead.
This spinster seems to view spring in quite an opposite way than from the ordinary thoughts that occur from spring. The spring seems to be fresh, and full of rebirth, and beauty. Although this female uses adjectives throughout lines five through twelve that suggests that she views 'spring' much differently than the average person. I agree with others when they have said that the spring must represent the beginning phases in a relationship. She realizes that she is not happy to be once again starting another annual relationship that probably will not amount to anything. She wants to go back a couple months, or back to her old relationship in winter where things were clear and evident, nothing new. The last two stanzas are where she seems to be criticizing those that enjoy the spring, and that she knows better. The words she uses provide evidence that she has had experience in the spring, and it truly is nothing to marvel at.
I received the impression that this was about a woman that has finally found a partner and they are walking down the aisle on their "ceremonious" wedding day. For whatever reason she flips out and decides that she doesn't want to marry him, probably because she is afraid of change since words like irregular, litter, and disarray are used to describe the aspects of spring.
She runs away on her wedding day because marriage undoubtedly brings about great change and thats what she's afraid of. She therefore barricades herself in her house and refuses to let any men into her life emotionally.
I think Spring could also be representative of her youthful years and she is regretful for having not finding a partner during the time period when hormones are buzzing. That time in her life has slipped by and after years of searching she all "of a sudden" realizes how dramatically it would affect her static lifestyle and so she runs away.
In this poem I see a woman who is afraid to love. The last three lines in this poem gave me a sense of her fear, “As no mere insurgent man could hope to break with curse, fist, threat or love, either.” It feels like she has been through a stressful relationship and is not willing to open up her heart to anyone anymore. The “irregular” and “unbalance” spring is very much like love, very much unpredictable and complicated. Spring is suppose to be a joyful time of year where everything start to grow, yet to Plath finds it intolerable. She chooses the orderly winter, where everything is “of white and black” (either one way or the other.) I find it very odd, since winter is often representing death and isolation. She prefers to be alone and caged in to protect herself from what she think is harm.
I thought everyone did a great job analyzing the poem. I especially agree with Grace and how the woman was afraid of falling in love instead of getting hurt. Like Sharon already said, the seasons in the poem represent the stages of love/ relationship. When she said that she "longed for winter" (13), to me it felt like she wanted to romance and the love to die. Winter is the coldest of the seasons and things tend to die during winter. This could symbolize the woman wanting all the love in the air to die. Like others have already commented, a spinster is a woman that is still unmarried when she should have already been married. ( dont know if that made sense....). This makes it seem that the woman has never even been in love. She is too afraid to take that chance and go for it.
This whole poem has a cold tone to it. It almost seems dead like the twigs on the branch of a tree. Plath creates this effect by using choice diction such as "struck", "tumult", "rank", "frosty", and maybe makes the poem even sound bitter like the coldness of the winter biting at your face.
Although it has been said before, I must contend that most of the interesting nature of this poem is derived from by use of figurative language in the comparison of seasons to love. Sylvia Plath relates an abstract concept which nobody can truly understand; love, to something that we understand and feel everyday and know is real; the seasons. Love is compared to the season of spring through its unorderly, and exciting nature. This is juxtaposed against the feeling of winter, and the emotions that come along with it; a sense of cold, black and white, clear-cut relations.
Plath symbolizes love with spring and being single with winter. She notices in April, a month in the middle of spring, for the first time the signs on spring: "the birds' irregular babel and the leaves' litter." She sees love as something that causes disorder, "her lover's gestures unbalance the air, His gait stray uneven." Spring is also messy: "She judged petals in disarray, The whole season, sloven."
The speaker prefers the order of winter. It is "scrupulously austere," extremely self-disciplined. She doesn't like to have feelings. In winter "each sentiment [is] within border, And heart's frosty discipline" keeps her from having to feel anything.
The speaker would prefer not to have this "burgeoning" love betray her regimen of going through life without feelings. she would rather "Let idiots Reel giddy in bedlam spring." She herself would "barricade" herself in her "house" so that no man could break in
I agree with everyone else in that the speaker is comparing the seasons with love. Winter is cold and kind of loveless. However, it is simple and straightforward, "exact as a snowflake". The speaker does not want to deal with the complexities of spring and of love such as the "petals in disarray". Instead of dealing with these complexities, the speaker tries to keep herself in a constant winter by barracading herself in her home.
I believe that this poem isn't just speaking about a women that does not want love, but Plath is trying to address the foolishness of people who are afraid of conflict and complexity in their life. Plath wants to show that all seasons are necessary in a year just like conflict is necessary in life.
It is somewhat funny because this poem reminds me of someone. No names needed though! Basically, I am taking that this woman get bored with things quickly, or makes herself bored to protect herself.
One gets a sense for her desire for everything to eb defined and in it's place when she says that she "longs for winter" and "its order of white and black". Everything needs to be "exact as a snowflake". Now, I took love as being a part of this poem and in all of the descriptions, I found this woman to be someone searching for the most "perfect" love on earth. Sadly, there is nothing perfect. This is where the sad vibe is coming from. One feels as though this woman is helpless and hopeless.
The change of seasons is perhaps the woman's hope of something new and changed. But at the same time, it feels like she does not want the change. Speaking of which, Erik, if you're going to generalize the fear of change, make sure that you are careful and say conservative rather than republican. Those two things kind of intertwine naturally, but conservative theory is what resists change. Hahah, back to the poem!
Well, The last stanza was most powerful for me. You get the overall sense of her "barricade of barb and cheek" she sets up to keep any "insurgent man" from coming close to her.
She fears love, and protects herself from her fear.
I approached this poem first by defining words that I was unsure of. A spinster is a word used to describe an elderly, unmarried woman. Babel is a confused mixture of sounds. Gait is a manner of walking and sloven also means characterized by disorder. Motley means expressing a great diversity of elements.
I think it’s very interesting that the subject of the poem found the lack of order apparent in the bird’s singing and the leaves to be tumultuous and was affected so profoundly as indicated by the first stanza. This poem’s topic however is very obvious. It is about a woman who fears love and affection because it is an irrational concept that cannot be quantified precisely. The randomness and sporadic nature of love and affection drains her of courage and will. She chooses to sacrifice beauty for order, preferring “winter’ to “spring”. I spent a lot of time thinking whether or not this poem was patently feministic, but I concluded that it was actually in many ways the opposite. I think Sylvia Plath is actually condemning the recluse nature of this woman who chooses to live an orderly life instead of seizing the moment and detaching herself from the comfort of order in favor of new satisfactions. The imagery in this poem is the strongest when Plath is describing the seasons. As a reader, it helps me to juxtapose winter and spring quite effectively and view them as nearly opposite of each other with one being very mundane, orderly, and foreboding whereas the other is diverse, rich, and beautiful. I think winter in many ways symbolizes solitude in this poem and spring symbolizes love.
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