Sense in Poetry

Diction
Images
Figures of Speech
SIMILE METAPHOR

A comparison of two A comparison of two

unlike things using unlike things that say
like or as one thing is another.

My brothers are as loud He has a voice of a lion.

as cymbals clanging
together.
HYPERBOLE PERSONIFICATION

An exaggeration that Giving human qualities

cant be possibly be to nonhuman things.
true.

It hurt more than The world swallowed

anything in the whole me whole.
world.
ALLITERATION ONOMATOPOEIA

The repetition of the Words whose sounds

same initial consonant suggest their meaning.
sound.
A snowball
Burn, baby, burn!! WHOOSHED past my
car during the snowball
Harm, hurt, hate and fight.
other stories.
ALLUSION OXYMORON

A reference to a A phrase whose words

famous person, place, contradict each other
or event. with opposite
meanings.
The gold medal winner
is a Cinderella story. Remind me to forget
about you.
IMAGINE
 You have to set off to climb a mountain in
search of a fabulous rare stone. What is your
impression of the mountain as you stand at its
foot?
 After a hard search, you still haven't
found the stone, and now the sun has fallen.
What will you do next?
You have finally discovered the stone you were
seekin. What kind of stone is it? Describe its
size, weight, and value.
 Now its is time to come down from the
mountain and return homw. What parting words
do you have for the mountain, and what is its
reply?
ANALYZE
You impression of the mountain shows the
image you have of your father. Was it
difficult and unforgiving? Gentle and easily
conquered?
The stone you are searching for
represents your as yet undiscovered talent
or strength. Your response to the question
shows whether you will ever realize your
untapped potential.
The way you described the stone shows
your feelings of self-worth. How big and
heavy was it, and what did you think of its
value?
Your parting words to the mountain reveal
what you have always wanted but never
been able, to say to your father. The
mountain's reply shows your idea about
his feelings for you.
SYLVIA PLATH
(1932-1963)
Childhood and Early Life

Sylvia Plath was born on October 27,

1932 in Massachusettes to Aurelia
Schobert Plath (American of Austrian
descent) and Otto Emile Plath
(immigrant from Germany). Her father
was a biology and German professor at
Boston University. Her father died from
untreated diabetes when she was only
eight years old.
College Life

Sylvia Plath went to the famous Smith

college in 1950. When she was in the third year,
she was awarded a prestigious position as a
guest editor at Mademoiselle Magazine. For the
same, she stayed in New York City for a month.
But her experience did not offer her exactly
what she had expected. She started seeing
herself and her life with a depressing point of
view. Carrying a disheartened heart, she
attempted first medically documented suicide
by taking an overdose of sleeping pills.
 After this unsuccessful suicide attempt,
Plath was briefly sent to a mental institution
where she was treated by electroshock therapy.
Plath made a good and quick recovery from the
trauma graduated from the Smith College in
1955 with honors. Plath also grabbed a
Fulbright scholarship to Newnham College,
Cambridge. At Cambridge, she continued to
write poetry enthusiastically. Her work was
published in the students newspaper Varsity.
 Plath began teaching at the Smith College, her
alma mater from September, 1957. But she found
it difficult to manage teaching and writing, at the
same time. In September, 1958, she and her
husband moved to Boston. In Boston, she took a
job as a hospital receptionist but attended
seminars on creative writing by Robert Lowell. In
1959, she and her husband moved to the UK. The
following year in the month of October, Plath
published her first ever collection of poetry
named The Colossus. In the August of 1961, she
completed her semi-autobiographical novel, The
Bell Jar. This novel was published under the pen
name Victoria Lucas in January 1963.
Personal Life

Plath married the poet Ted Hughes. However, the

marriage was was laden with difficulties, especially after
Hughes' affair with Assia Wevill. In June 1962, Plath met
with a car accident but she described it as one of her
suicide attempts. In the September of the same year, the
couple separated. Plath shifted to London in December
1962 with her children. In London, she rented a flat at 23
Fitzroy Road. It was the same house where William Butler
Yeats once lived. Plath was pleased by this fact and
considered it a good omen. She, however, was circled with
depression again but this time, she managed to finish the
rest of her poetry collection.
Death

Dr. Horder, a close friend who resided near her

place, prescribed her some antidepressants a few
days before she died. Dr. Horder knew that she was
at risk being alone with children and visited her
almost daily. He also made earnest efforts to
convince her to get herself admitted in the
hospital, but he failed and thus, arranged a live-in
nurse. The nurse had to arrive at 9o clock in the
morning of February 11, 1963, when she reached
she could not get into the house. But later she
managed to enter the house with the help of a
workman. Both of them discovered Plath dead
from carbon monoxide poisoning in the kitchen.
Her head was in the oven.
Daddy
You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal
And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over
blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.
In the German tongue, in the Polish
town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend
Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.
It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene
An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.
The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of
Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird
luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.
I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your
gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You
Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak
through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your
foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less than the black man who
Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, Im finally through.
The black telephones off at the root,
The voices just cant worm through.
If Ive killed one man, Ive killed
two
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.
Theres a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on
you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, Im
through.