РефератыИностранный языкExExamine Plaths Presentation Of Parentchild Relationships Essay

Examine Plaths Presentation Of Parentchild Relationships Essay

Examine Plath?s Presentation Of Parent-child Relationships Essay, Research Paper


Plath deals


with the themes she chooses to write about, such as death, suicide and


depression, in a very interesting fashion. However, out of all her themes, the


one that is the most interesting is her presentation of relationships between


parents and children. The way in which she deals with this theme is very


different to her other poetry. She breaks many of the rules that were laid down


by poets before her, such as the romantics. These series of poets stressed the idea


of family and the importance of parents to children and vice versa. As a


result, the vast majority of poets that wrote about these relationships


thereafter presented them in a very idealistic manner, implying family harmony


and lack of conflict. Therefore, when Plath started to write about family


relationships in a decidedly unromantic and disturbing style, some were


shocked. Instead of her poems being about the healthiness of relationships


between parents and children, they are about the darker, less talked about


side. It is mainly due to this difference between her and some previous


presentations of parent-child relationships that makes her poetry tackling the


subject interesting.? As with most of


Plath?s other material, her method of dealing with this theme is by no means


straightforward. This is shown in the fact that there are two types of


parent-child relationships presented in her poetry. The first relationship is


written with the speaker as a progeny?


discussing her own parents, and the second explores the relationship


between the speaker and her own children. Generally this speaker is Plath


discussing her own relationships. We know this due to the amount of


autobiographical material we have of Plath?s life present in such texts as her


novel, ?The Bell Jar?, the many interviews she did and the letters that have


been published since her death. The way in which she presents these two


different kinds of relationships contrast widely in tone, imagery and


language.? When Plath is writing about


her own parents and her relationship with them the tone of the writing is very


dark, depressing and full of anger. Possibly the most interesting poem tackling


this matter is ?Daddy? which she wrote in 1962. In this poem Plath lays bare


the tortured relationship between her and her father. She talks of having to


live in a ?black shoe? for thirty years, cowering, ?poor and white/Barely


daring to breathe or Achoo.? By describing herself as ?poor and white?, she


creates a stark contrast to the ?black shoe?. It is as if she has been stifled,


starved of nutrition and sunlight by her all enveloping father. She is ?poor?,


not in the sense of material value, but spiritually. She has had all feeling


and emotion sapped from her by the presence of her father. ?The strange childhood imagery in the echo of the well-known


nursery rhyme (?The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe?) is carried on throughout


the rest of the poem. For example the repetitions (?You do not do, you do not


do?) and the rigid assonances (?Barely daring?) sound like another nursery


rhyme, albeit a rather twisted one. This kind of imagery suggests that she is


in some way rooted in her childhood past. We then learn that this is due to the


overbearing influence her ?Daddy? had, and still has, on her. He is described


as huge, ?marble heavy?, even his toe is as ?Big as a Frisco seal?. This


imagery would suggest that her father represented to her a big and rather


threatening presence. This is backed up by Plath?s comparison of her father to


a Nazi oppressor, ?With your Luftwaffe??, ?And your Aryan eye, bright


blue./Panzer man, panzer man, O you? This is interesting as we


know that her father, although Austrian was not actually a Nazi, so even a


tenuous racial link is enough to cast him as a Nazi murderer in her eyes. To


her, he is obviously so close to a Nazi in his actions, that she sees him as


one. She then casts herself as the oppressed Jew being ?chuffed off?to Dachau,


Auschwitz, Belsen. Her usage of ?chuffed? obviously refers to the Nazi?s


transport of the Jews to the death camps by train, but it also harks back to


the childhood imagery, in that it is a very childish word with associations


childhood games. Despite all this anger,


Plath still voices a wish to rejoin him. She was ?ten when they buried (him)?,


and mentions that ?at twenty (she) tried to die/ To get back, back, back to


(him)?. This shows that although her father was an overbearing, dominant,


almost stifling presence in her life, he was also a very important one. Even in


death he retains his power over her life and the only way in which she can


escape him is to die and join him. The poem ends with threats of another


suicide attempt. She cuts herself off so she can be left alone to die. The last


line of the poem; ?Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I?m through?, is a kind of


severance from a turbulent love affair. Such reference to her father


appears in Plath?s other work, such as ?Little Fugue?. In this case the poem is


not exclusively about her father, but does contain references which back up the


ideas in ?Daddy?. For example, Plath?s use of threatening language when


describing her father: ?Such a dark funnel, my father!?. She again describes


him as Nazi figure; ?Gothic and barbarous, pure German.? Although not such a


prominent figure in her work, Plath does mention her mother in some of her


poems. The best example of this is in ?The Moon and the Yew Tree?. In this poem


we see her mother as presented in a guise of being out of reach and distant. ??????????? The


eyes lift after it and find the moon./ The moon is my mother?. ??????????? How


I would like to believe in tenderness. It is as if she is reaching t

owards her mother as a


Yew tree reaches towards the sky and the moon, forever out of reach. Her mother


smiles benevolently down upon her but does nothing, has no effect on the shadow


of her father, the imposing presence of the ?Gothic? tree. In this way she


feels neglected by her mother, and as a result she is not such a dominant


presence, and so does not figure in as much work as Plath?s father. However,


the dominant tone of Plath?s poems tackling the matter of the narrator as the


?child? talking about her own relationship with her parents is a dark one. This


has much to do with her own experiences. The language used in these poems is


abrasive and violent and this used in conjunction with the threatening and


somewhat disturbing imagery produces poetry of immense power and feeling. ??????????? There


exists another way in which Plath writes about parent-child relationships. That


is of the narrator talking of her own children and her relationship with them.


These poems contrast wildly in tone and style to her other poems such as the


ones discussed above. Instead of being dark, somewhat depressing and disturbing


in tone, they are more light-hearted and joyful. In fact, it could be said that


when Plath writes about a parent-child relationship from this point of view, it


is the only time she really allows her poems to have a lighter tone. These seem


to be her most uplifting poems, in theme, tone and language. One of her happiest poems


tackling this subject is ?You?re?. This is about the relationship between a


mother and her unborn child. Its overall tone is very light-hearted and joyful,


with Plath describing the life inside her using playful imagery and uplifting


language. ?Clownlike, happiest on your hands? is a good example of the overall


tone and style of the poem. It is exuberant and high spirited and is in stark


contrast to many of her other poems. It is clear that her child has already


given her a lot of pleasure. Indeed she is very satisfied, ?Right, like a well


done sum?. At last she feels complete and has feeling of existing, of being


alive. Plath also uses a number of almost absurd comparisons in this poem which


add to the happy tone. For example, the line ?Mute as a turnip? is humorous and


adds to the feeling of merriment. The rhythm and metre of ?You?re? is also very


different to her poems about child-parent relationships, with her as the child.


It is written more like a narrative, or story than ?Daddy? which has regular,


almost marching rhythm and rhyme. ??????????? ?Morning


Song? is similar to ?You?re?, in that it is of much lighter tone. It too uses


uplifting imagery and language to present a relationship, indicating that it


makes Plath happy. A good example is the first line; ?Love set you going like a


fat gold watch?. This is a very stimulating choice of imagery as it has so many


implications. The ?fat gold watch? signifies tangibility and? weightiness. It has associations with the


inexorability of life; it will tick onwards until it finally winds down and


stops. She is satisfied at her creation, it makes her feel as if she has


accomplished something worthwhile. This light tone is consistent throughout the


poem and is epitomised in the last line: ?The clear vowels rise like balloons?.


This echoes the lifting of her soul which having a child brings her. She enjoys


looking after her child and ?stumbl(ing) from bed, cow heavy and floral/ In


(her) Victorian nightgown.? This is typical of the self mocking style of Plath.


So rarely in her poetry does Plath write about things giving her pleasure, that


when she does, as is the case in these poems about her relationship with her


children, it stands out as being remarkable. ??????????? However,


this is not always the case in Plath?s work. Nothing is ever straightforward


and simple with her, and one must avoid making generalisations. Indeed, not all


of Plath?s poems in which children appear are lighthearted and uplifting. In


fact, in many of her poems, she uses child, more often baby, imagery to produce


a threatening tone. A good example of this appears in her poem ?Tulips?, where


she talks of the tulips which ??breathe lightly/ Through their white


swaddlings, like an awful baby?. This is not the only example of nightmarish


and somewhat disturbing child imagery. For example, the line in ?The Arrival of


the Bee Box?, ?The coffin of? a square baby?. These kinds of references to


children in Plath?s other work, although not directly tackling the matter of


parent-child relationships, indicate that there was another darker side to


Plath?s relationship with her children. She felt threatened by their demand for


attention and they obviously represented some kind of malevolent influence on


her. Perhaps one can read this as Plath?s desire not to treat her children as


her parents treated her. It is as though her fear of this comes out in her


disturbing baby imagery as she is frightened by the responsibility she is under


due to them. ??????????? In


conclusion, it can be said that Plath?s presentation of parent-child


relationships is full of conflicting emotions and different viewpoints. One


cannot make a rule into which all her poetry fits because they are all so


varied and conflicting. However, if one takes the two types of parent child


poetry discussed separately, one can divide them into two general types.The


first, which tackles Plath?s relationship with her own parents all seem to be


dark and malevolent and full of anger. The second type seem to be far more


lighthearted, indeed by far the most lighthearted of all Plath?s work. Despite


the existence of a darker, more threatening side to her presentation of this


kind of relationship it does not quite counterbalance the overall impression of


happiness present in her poems of this kind.

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