"Child" by Sylvia Plath
The Poem
Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new
Whose name you meditate--
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little
Stalk without wrinkle,
Pool in which images
Should be grand and classical
Not this troublous
Wringing of hands, this dark
Ceiling without a star.
Indian pipe: Suggests peace, wisdom
Stalk without a wrinkle: Suggests youth and beauty
Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new
Whose name you meditate--
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little
Stalk without wrinkle,
Pool in which images
Should be grand and classical
Not this troublous
Wringing of hands, this dark
Ceiling without a star.
- Written after the birth of her second child, Nicholas
- Two weeks before committing suicide
- Last poem she wrote
- Insight into her state of mind at that time.
- Mindscape
- Plath tells us at the start of the poem what she would like for the child, but at the end presents us with the reality.
- This poem reveals more about her than her child.
- Plath addresses her son directly, giving the poem extra intimacy and a deeper personal dimension.
- The poem starts off sweetly - looking into her child’s eyes, they were the one absolutely beautiful thing.
- Everything else was far from being perfect.
- Plath wants to fill her son’s life with beautiful experiences.
- She wants to teach the names of all these beautiful things to the child.
- Plath also seems to want the reader to meditate on the names:
Indian pipe: Suggests peace, wisdom
Stalk without a wrinkle: Suggests youth and beauty
- She would like his eye to bear witness to only the wonderful and beautiful things in life.
- Instead, the child must look at this troubled, newly single mother standing anxiously and wringing her hands.
- Plath was unable to cope.
- Instead of seeing a world of new experiences, the child lives a claustrophobic, dark, narrow and confined existence.
- Plath felt inadequate, as she was not able to provide the things she would have liked to for her child.
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