Reyes, Rochelle Ann P.

Bachelor of Arts in English 4-2

Final Paper

ENGL 3323: Introduction to Stylistics - Friday (03:00PM-06:00PM)

16 October 2015
 This paper is about the analysis Mad Girl’s Love Song from the viewpoint of stylistic

analysis. Mad Girl’s Love Song was written by Sylvia Plath when she was a student. She was

born on October 27, 1932. She was an American poet, novelist and a writer.

Mad Girl's Love Song - Sylvia Plath

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;

I lift my lids and all is born again.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,

And arbitrary blackness gallops in:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed

And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:

Exit seraphim and Satan's men:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,

But I grow old and I forget your name.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

 I should have loved a thunderbird instead;

At least when spring comes they roar back again.

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The title of the poem is Mad Girl’s Love Song. Reading the title gives the readers a hint

what the poem is about. The chosen title connotes a meaning that the “girl” is mad or the “girl is

insane about the love of her life since the title says it is a love song. One interpretation for the

poem is that “you” in this poem pertains to her father because her father passed away when she

was eighth years old another interpretation is that Sylvia Plath wrote this because of Ted Hughes

and her love for him. This poem shows her emotions she had when she was in a relationship with

Ted. The girl in the poem became insane when she was left by the man she loves. This

interpretation fits perfectly to what happen to their relationship.

The poem was one of the intriguing poems of Sylvia Plath. The themes of this poem are

love, and loss. The poet in the poem shows her feel affection for her lover but at the end of the

poem her lover left her. The persona was trying to escape the world she is in, the world without

her lover but she was not able to do so as she open her eyes and she is still there. She regrets

loving the person she is referring in this poem because the person never came back. The main

theme of this poem is about longing and it also has the sub themes which are: anger of losing

someone you love, love and the betrayal of the person that pertains with the “you” in the poem.

Mad Girl’s Love Song is a fixed verse and it is a villanelle because of the pattern it

follows. A Villanelle has nineteen-line poetic form with five tercets followed by a quatrain. It

has two refrains and two repeating rhymes. It does not have an organized meter. There are
repeating lines which are: “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead” and “(I think I made you

up inside my head)” which is alternately distributed in each stanza. The two ending lines serve as

the concluding lines of the poem. Each connotes meaning, the first line: “(I think I made you up

inside my head)” gives emphasis that the persona tries to convince herself that her lover is not

real and the second line: “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead” gives emphasis about the

two worlds the persona is having. The persona describes the poem in fist person point of views

because of the pronouns “I”, “me” and “my”. The persona talks directly to her lover.

The diction of this poem is expressive meaning it was able to express emotions, feelings

and thoughts. Lines are not that short, there are words that are not familiar but easy to

understand, words are meaningful and are well-chosen. The repeating lines shows obsession and

passion of the persona with her lover that is lost in this poem.

Table 1: Distribution of words in Mad Girl’s Love Song

Nouns Verbs Adjective Adverbs

eyes shut all again

world drops born quite

lids lift arbitrary instead

head think insane back

stars made old

blue go

red waltzing

blackness gallops
dead dreamed

bed bewitched

moon-struck sung

God kissed

sky topples

Hell’s fire fade

seraphim fancied

Satan’s men return

way said

name grow

thunderbird forget

spring loved

comes

roar

20 22 5 4

It is obvious that the poem has more nouns and verbs than the other grammatical

constituents. The nouns are mostly concrete and only few are abstract. Verbs have the highest

numbers of words in the poem. Mostly of the verbs in the poem are used in past tense expect for

the verbs used in first two lines of second stanza. The verbs that are in past tense shows what the

persona did and the verbs that are used in present tense are the lines which the persona thinks

that will happen or what should happen if she was able to do the line before the lines the present

tense verbs are in. This indicates how the persona regrets the things she has made and thought of
the other things if she did not do the things she did that made her miserable. Thus, it contributes

the idea of betrayal of the lover in the poem.

The use of semi-colon indicates the stress in every “I shut my eyes and all the world

drops dead” line which means there is a part of the persona where she really wants to escape the

world she is in. The use of parentheses in the first stanza shows there is another world where she

has a lover and the other world where her lover was gone. The persona has imaginary (the world

inside her mind) and real world.

In the first stanza, “drops dead” shows alliteration. In stanza 2, line 1, “stars go

waltzing out” the stars was able to waltz and in line 2 of the same stanza, “arbitrary blackness

gallops in”, arbitrary blackness was able to gallop shows personification in the poem. The

imagery is in the first line of the second stanza “in blue and red”. Another personification is in

the first line of the last stanza of the poem, “I should have loved a thunderbird instead;” where

the persona wants to love the thunderbird instead of her lover. The thunderbird in this poem has

the ability to love the persona since thunderbirds goes back from where it belongs every winter

meaning she wants a lover that will return to her. The cacophony in the poem is in second stanza,

the line “arbitrary blackness gallops in” which means the persona is separated to the real world.

Assonance is common to the works of Sylvia Plath. The rhyme of the poem is “aba aba aca dba

aea abaa” The rhyming words are dead, head, red, bed, said, and instead. Every stanza has the

same 10 10 10 (Ten syllable iambic) per line except for the third stanza which has 9 9 10

syllables per line.

In forth stanza, first and second line “God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:”, “Exit

seraphim and Satan's men:” Somehow creates a parallelism between God falling slowly to the
fires of hell when God is considered the powerful one. A seraphim is an angel. In these lines the

persona shows the readers her belief.

The poem Mad Girl’s Love Song shows the desperation of the “girl” which is the persona

that loss her lover. She tries to convince herself that her lover was just made up since the lover

did not come back. The girl is angry since she compared her lover’s capability of loving her to a

thunderbird. She is madly in love with her lover even God and Satan does not matter to her.

Links:

http://www.neuroticpoets.com/plath/

http://www.neuroticpoets.com/plath/poem/madgirl/