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
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.