Favourite Poet - Sylvia Plath

Favourite Poet - Sylvia Plath

To be honest, I only chose Sylvia Plath because of the short introduction about 'deeply disturbed woman' in the blog prompt, but after reading about her story, I feel that she deserves to be my favourite poet.

"She went through a deep depression in 1953 and a subsequent suicide attempt."
"She committed suicide using her gas oven."
"In deep depression, she wrote her most famous book, Ariel."
As with these quotations, you can see that she is a real pessimistic woman whom of which puts all of her emotions comprising of total sadness into her works. Despite her depression since the age of eight when her father had died, she was one of the most promising students in her college, which explains her success in her stylistic and rhythmic poems.

Sylvia Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 27, 1932. Her mother, Aurelia Schober, was a master’s student at Boston University when she met Plath’s father, Otto Plath, who was her professor. They were married in January of 1932.In 1940, when Sylvia was eight years old, her father died as a result of complications from diabetes.
In 1950, Plath matriculated at Smith College. In early 1956, she attended a party and met the English poet, Ted Hughes. Shortly thereafter, Plath and Hughes were married, on June 16, 1956. In England, she gave birth to the couple's two children, Freida and Nicholas Hughes, in 1960 and 1962, respectively. On February 11, 1963, during one of the worst English winters on record, Plath wrote a note to her downstairs neighbor instructing him to call the doctor, then she committed suicide using her gas oven.

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Her most famous poem, Daddy:
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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 gipsy 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 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, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've 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.

There's 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, I'm through.
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Lady Lazarus:
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I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
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Morning song:
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Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.
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Source - http://poets.org/

Figurative language

Figurative language

An Evil tree by William Blake
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I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole.
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see,
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
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Question 1:
How are the figurative language used in the poem? Give the specific word(s), explain what type of figurative language it is and why the poet chose to use this figurative language?
Answer:
In relation to the wraths 'growing' and 'ending', they are hyperboles that exaggerate the hatred for the writer's friend and enemy.
Quoting "apple" from the second line of the third paragraph, it is a representation of the tears of the tree and is thus symbolism.
The metaphor in the poem is "And I watered it in fears, Night & Morning with my tears." because it shows the picture in the readers' mind.
Question 2:
Tell us why you like this poem in no less that 100 words.
Answer:
This poem has the feelings of a tree that shows how it feels as it grows, just as if it were a human being. I was also attracted to the title of the poem because I would know what to expect in the poem, thus having some interest in it. With the rhythms and all types of figurative language, I liked it much more than other poems I glanced through because it gives the reader some challenge in picturing the emotions that the tree felt.

Who is your favourite character in Village by the Sea?

Who is your favourite character in Village by the Sea?

He used to be a worthless, seemingly-permanently drunken father whom his children thought was an eyesore and someone who only justifies hatred in their eyes. He was addicted to toddy, hence not performing his duties as a father, a husband. He neglected his work as a fisherman and rather spend time, or money, on toddy than care for his family members, especially his sickly wife. He was someone of no value to almost everybody, except that he was of worth to those whom he had owed money.
Yet, he has come to his senses and started to see light - the righteous path. He now is a father who is caring to his family members and mended his ways. He has never drunk toddy ever since he had turned over a new leaf.
Hari's father is my favourite character in Village by the Sea. You may call me sadistic once again, but his perseverance in trying to provide a better life for his family members after he had known that he was wrong had touched me. Although he was once a really bad person, at least he was repentant, unlike other male villagers who were similarly addicted to toddy.

Classified under *Others*.

Which part of Village by the Sea do you like best?

Which part of Village by the Sea do you like best?

Quoting page 102:
'Debt, debt, debt,' Hari gnashed his teeth. 'Father's always in debt because of toddy.' He got up and turned away from the dead dog and his wailing sisters, and walked out of the house. He would get away. He would go to Rewas. To Bombay. And never come back to this sad house, his frightened sisters, his ill mother, his drunken father. He would leave them and run, run as far as he could go.

Although you may call me sadistic for liking this particular part, it shows that change was about to happen. Change that Hari was about to grow mature. Change that the village was about to go through while Hari was at Bombay, learning skills and making money. Change that was about to happen in the family itself, which was that their father would turn over a new leaf while their mother soon got well. This paragraph by itself shows alot of changes whereby the next sentence, or paragraph, or chapter would be an exiting part to read because things are about to change.

Classified under *Others*.

Is progress necessarily beneficial for society?

Is progress necessarily beneficial for society?

In my opinion, progress is NOT necessarily beneficial for society. Adaptability is a problem that many faces when it comes to progress and change, especially when it is a huge one.
Using reference from Village by the Sea, the villagers were totally unhappy when they heard about factories which are about to be set up in the village, taking away their land. Factories produce sewage which will pollute the sea will cause fishes, the main source of food in the village, to die. Also, most villagers would not be hired to work in the factory, leaving them with nothing left, but to die.
With the above example, I can conclude that progress may not only not be beneficial for society, but could also harm the natural way of it. Hence, once again, progress is NOT necessarily beneficial for society because of the fact that it may have more negative impacts than positive ones. Even if there were to be progress, I would feel that it would have to be a step-by-step progress instead of a huge leap where the people of the society has to adapt quickly to a huge change.

Classified under *Others*.

I rather be the city rat than the country rat

I rather be the city rat than the country rat

As the title has said, I rather be the city rat because of the high survival rate compared to being a country rat. Elaboration is as follows.
City rats have the advantage of more job opportunities and, with the aid of the government, shelter and no lack of food. With more jobs, the rate of being employed will be much higher and also a stable salary. Communication is also much more convenient because of the high modern telecommunication technology, hence making life easier.
With the lack of medical care in the city, health of the people in the countryside would go down despite the fact that there is fresh, unpolluted air there. In the city, there is modern technology and has a higher standard of living compared to the countryside. Besides, the city will breed people with high intellect because of the high standards of education.

Classified under *Others*.

Confessions of a student

Confessions of a student

As a student, we should be hardworking and strive to achieve perfection, yet I have failed to achieve either of the two... ...to any of the teachers reading this, forgive me!
I am a total slacker and I don't do my homework once in awhile as I spent time on what I enjoyed doing, like watching TV, surfing the Internet, etc. Hence, I have failed to achieve the virtue of 'hardworking'. To be hardworking, we have to place studies as the first target and finish all homework before you have time to rest. Or rather, finish revising everything you have learnt on that day.
I always did my homework in a rush and never EVER checked for errors. Hence, I didn't think I actually did very well on assignments. I rarely studied or revised on what the teachers had taught me, as a result, tests became something I rarely cared about. I should have studied harder for tests, and get what was something I should have been proud of, because it was the best I could do, but I didn't.
To sum up, I haven't exceptionally been a very good student, hence, I aim to achieve near-perfection in Term 3 and in future!

Classified under *Others*.