Themes Evident in Sylvia Plath Poems
Themes evident in Sylvia Plath’s poetry Sylvia Plath displays many themes in her work; however she has the tendency to conceal and dig her themes, metaphors, and symbols deep in her poetic words, which leaves us readers left to decipher them. Plath is a poet that conveys quite compelling emotions through her work and is both prodigious and petrifying while still gloomy and relieving. Though there are many themes to revisit, the more significant ones evident in her writing will be explored. Mortality, journey, depression, and hope are the key themes that strike the heart of Plath’s poetry and will be further analyzed. Poems such as Blackberrying, Crossing the Water, Departure, Suicide off egg Rock, and Mystic, display a very strong correlation to the core themes, and thus they will be exemplified throughout the essay. In essence, this essay will deconstruct the themes in the poems of Sylvia Plath and further investigate the themes hiding beneath her written work. In the poem, Blackberrying, Plath begins with a sense of journey of life which begins very nicely as there are occasional references to childhood and innocence such as in the first stanza where it says “They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.” Then as the poem develops, the journey of life seems to worsen as there are more references to bitterness and mistrust. Also, in this poem the theme of depression is quite evident, such as in the second stanza where the repetition of “protesting” emphasizes what she is hearing and it is a sign of what upsets her and clearly has a parallel to one of her memories in the past. Again in the second stanza, Plath writes “I come to one bush, of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies.” The bush of flies creates a rather grotesque image in one’s head and gives the reader an almost uncomfortable feeling. In the third stanza, the theme of depression is very evident as it opens with” The only thing now to come is the Sea.” She used the sea as a