Sylvia Plath was a uniquely troubled individual, whose originality of vision was reflected by her often dark, brooding poetry. Through her poetry, Plath expressed her personal view on a variety of recurring themes, including the obstacles faced by a woman poet, influences that shape the self, the allure of death, and several others. Among her most original and personal perspectives is that on motherhood; her impression of the role of women in child-rearing is not simply unique, but almost perversely different, at times, from the traditional definition of motherhood, and reflects the dark and individualistic aspects of her character.
One poem in which Sylvia Plath’s vision of motherhood is made palpably manifest is “Point Shirley.” Here, as in the bulk of her poems concerning motherhood, Plath circumvents the traditional emotions and images associated with mothering (i.e. warmth, compassion, softness), and employs, rather, images of harshness, barrenness, and sterility. The speaker’s description of her grandmother’s home, a beacon of former childhood happiness, is one defined by emptiness, descriptors of something that has been depleted. Though the speaker never explicitly states his or her emotions, they are made evident through the poem’s persistent tone of depletion and decay.
Point Shirley is not entirely negative and downtrodden in its implication toward motherhood; it is evident that the speaker felt and still feels love towards her late grandmother, as evident in the musing, “I would get from these dry-papped stones / The milk your love instilled in them” (Plath, lines 41-42), and the description of the grandmother’s efforts to maintain her home as “a labor of love, and that labor lost” (Plath, ll. 34). It is apparent that the speaker feels a deep attachment to the grandmother character; therefore, her maternal love and effort was not entirely in vain. However, time, here represented by the sea as it “eats at Point Shirley” (Plath, line 36), conquers all, and renders the efforts of motherhood, that “labor of love,” a lost endeavor.
“Point Shirley,” in its beleaguered and elegiac tone, is exemplary of Plath’s overriding perspective on mothering. Though the speaker in the poem refers not to the speaker’s own mother, a grandmother is still an icon of motherhood and the continual labor required of maternal figures. By representing this labor as one that, in the end, is undone by time’s erosive effects, like broom straws worn to the nub, Plath reveals her own attitude towards mothering as a futile, self-depleting task.
Plath’s concept of motherhood as a sacrificial act, resulting in a mother’s eventual exhaustion, is reinforced by her poem, “Morning Song.” The poem, possibly precipitated by the birth of her own child, is a piece of conflicted tone, at once heralding the birth of a child into the world, and acknowledging the speaker’s (mother’s) perceived obliteration as an individual. The speaker states: “I’m no more your mother / Than the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow / Effacement at the wind’s hand” (Plath, lines 7-9). This statement betrays a negativity in the speaker’s attitude towards motherhood; it implies both a denial of the duties inherent in motherhood, and a consciousness of the loss of self perceived in the assumption of those duties. By referring to herself as a cloud, the speaker imbues herself with a sense of ephemerality; clouds are transient, shifting and disappearing continually. The speaker implies that, like a cloud, her significance in the life of her child is temporary. Also, the speaker exhibits a consciousness that, through the act of becoming a mother, she becomes something not herself. That is to say, her former understanding of herself, her identity as an individual woman, is obliterated to be replaced by that of a mother, beholden to her child. Thus, the speaker’s identity suffers its “slow effacement at the wind’s hand;” the nebulous cloud of her individuality is dissipated by the obligations of motherhood, which like the wind, is a force beyond her control.
Also prevalent in Plath’s poems is the notion of self-image, and the affect of motherhood and pregnancy upon it. Again, her poetry reveals her attitude toward mothering to be a negative one, as evident in both “Morning Song” and “Metaphors.” In “Morning Song,” Plath speaks directly to her self-image in relation to parenthood, in a scene depicting the common parental task of attending a wakeful infant: “One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral / In my Victorian nightgown” (Plath, lines 13-14). Here, the speaker’s description of herself is not at all flattering. By referring to herself as “cow-heavy,” she reveals a disgust with her physical self, brought about by the weight gain typically associated with pregnancy. This apparent dissatisfaction with one’s physical self, as caused by pregnancy, is also prevalent in Plath’s “Metaphors.” Over the poem’s nine lines, the poet employs nine metaphors to represent herself and her pregnancy and, again, the majority of them imply a sense of self-disgust. The speaker describes herself as “an elephant, a ponderous house, / A melon strolling on two tendrils” (Plath, lines 2-3), and “a cow in calf” (Plath, line 7). None of these images used to describe the pregnant speaker are positive in implication. All imply a rotundity and ungainliness, however, an attribute considered unattractive, especially in women, by societal standards.
Also implicit in Sylvia Plath’s poetry is a consciousness of the role assumed by women when they become mothers. A distinguished female poet and literary mind of her time, Plath had a clear, strong personality, and was compelled towards perfection. It is understandable, then, that such a defined and individualistic woman would find it difficult to accept the compromise of her own identity in the time-consuming, demanding duties of child-rearing. This difficulty, a seeming resentment, at times, is manifested in her poetry, notably in “Morning Song.” Plath’s choice to describe the nightgown of the speaker as “Victorian” is not accidental, but, instead, further reveals her attitude toward mothering. The Victorian era was one of staunch patriarchal values, and left virtually no room for women to foster individuality or creativity. Women served as wives and caretakers of children, and were consigned to their role without hope of change. Correspondingly, the nightgown serves as an exterior manifestation of the speaker’s newly assumed role as a mother, and its accompanying restraints and limitations.
Pervading each of Plath’s poems concerning motherhood, is an overriding concern with the changes brought about by pregnancy and motherhood. Be they physical alterations, or changes in lifestyle necessitated by the labor of maternal love, according to Plath, the modifications to oneself are unavoidable and irrevocable. She addresses this concept of irrevocability in her poem, “Metaphor,” in stating, “I’ve eaten a bag of green apples, / Boarded the train there’s no getting off” (Plath, lines 8-9). First, her likening of impregnation to the consumption of a bag of green apples recalls the biblical Fall of Man through the Tree of Knowledge. Implicit in the consumption of the bag of apples is both the tactile pleasure of the flavor of the apples (signifying the initial ecstasy of the sexual act of conception), and the subsequent change it brings about (the ejection from the garden in the biblical sense, and literal pregnancy in the physical sense). With the onset of pregnancy and the duties inherent in motherhood, a woman loses the carefree pleasure of being responsible for only herself, a loss, in a sense, akin to the loss of paradise. Second, by comparing her pregnancy to the boarding of a train, the speaker furthers the notion of motherhood as inescapable; a train travels down linear rails, and bears its rider to a predetermined destination, just as motherhood guides a woman into a predestined role.
Overall, Plath’s poetry presents the concept of motherhood as one defined by loss: the loss of physical beauty, of free time, and of one’s identity . Her concept of mothering, as revealed by her poetry, runs directly counter to the widely-recognized perspective that it is a fulfilling and rewarding stage in a woman’s life. Though she does acknowledge some positive aspects of mothering, as evidenced by the love the speaker in “Point Shirley” feels for her grandmother, even that sentiment is overwhelmed by a sense of loss. Thus, motherhood is portrayed in an almost entirely negative cast. By utilizing her unique and compelling writing, Sylvia Plath is able to make a statement on pregnancy and motherhood that is unique to her own artistic vision, and as contrary to convention as the rest of her dark and macabre poetry.
Works Cited
Hunter, Booth et.al., eds. The Norton Introduction to Poetry. W. W. Norton & Co., 2002. Plath, Sylvia. “Metaphor.” Sylvia Plath Homepage. 19 Feb 2004. Anja Beckmann.
