Metaphors by Sylvia Plath – Layers of Meaning

A Detailed Look at Layered Allusion in This Pregnancy Poem

Sep 25, 2009

Plath loads multi-layered allusions onto every term in Metaphors. Waiting to be discovered are comments about Eve and Original Sin, and mothers devalued as mere breeders.

Sylvia Plath rings the changes of meaning in all the terms she uses in Metaphors. The reader is teasingly challenged to ferret out the layers of meaning - thereby making Metaphors a series of nested metaphors. See what layered meaning can be extracted from these nested allusions.

Plath Sets up the Riddle Poem

Plath sets up the riddle poem concept, not only by using 9 lines for the nine month s of pregnancy, but by the woman describing herself as nine syllables. What do syllables make? Put them together and they make a word, which the woman will utter. In Biblical terms, the Word is made flesh.

Metaphors that Describe the Pregnant Woman

On the surface, these are descriptive of how a child-burdened woman might see herself. However, there are other connotations. Elephants have very long gestation periods. This woman’s pregnancy may feel endless. Later, Plath relates the taking of ivory from the elephant. A house, of course, is not just a large item, but a family container. There is also the Biblical connotation of the body as “house of the soul.”

This delightful analogy should get a chuckle, but there could be an implication that the expectant woman has become the very “fruit of the womb.” The baby has taken over her life.

Metaphors that Describe the Unborn Child

Zap, zap, zap! One after the other, Plath creates new and profound metaphors as extensions of her previous ones. This time the baby is addressed ... and with O, as one might address a god or goddess. Each self- image of the pregnant woman has a correlation with the child. The melon is internally a red (common colour for new-born babies) fruit; the elephant’s body will be plundered for the only thing that it has of importance –its ivory; the house is nothing without the intrinsic fine timbers from which it is constructed.

The obvious reference is to the rising of the yeasted loaf so that it overtops the baking pan. There is also the pun on a familiar disparaging reference to pregnancy as a “bun in the over.” A more weighty reference is to bread as the staff of life and to the Biblical allusion that the Kingdom of God is like leaven that infuses itself throughout the entire loaf.

Analogy Depicts the Mother-Child Relationship

There are so many allusions in this simple line. Plath rings the changes. Minting is the process of making something valuable from base metal. Everyone likes fresh shiny new coins. Coins are passed around. Coins have images stamped on them. There is the paradox that coins are normally placed in a purse, not minted within it. A fat purse is a prize for pickpockets. The term purse usually stands for what is inside it. It has no great value in itself, but contains great value.

Here, the persona explores her ignominious position in relation to the child she is producing. The child is centre-stage, while the mother is just the stage, the boards on which the action will be played out. Thus, the woman is a means to an end, just as the breeding cow is valued for the calves she can produce.

So much can be made of this. Initially, the sense of distension one might feel after eating an entire bag of apples is apparent. Consider also the qualification that the apples are green. Green fruit is sour. It can also mean unripe fruit, which is notorious for giving the consumer violent pains in the belly.

Plath’s Allusion to Eve and the Apple and Original Sin

However, there are richer meanings than that: it is hard to escape the Biblical allusion to the first woman, Eve. The unspecified fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that Eve was tempted to eat by the Devil has traditionally been depicted as an apple. Eve was severely punished for eating just one apple – the persona feels sure she must have eaten the whole bagful!

Most significantly of all, the apple reminds the reader of the Biblical consequence of Eve’s origin sin: God punished Eve with the travail of childbirth. “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.” (Genesis 3: 16)

A Pregnancy Poem for Mothers

The train the woman can’t get off is not pregnancy per se, but the irreversible birth process, that the griping pains of consuming unripe apples suggest. The train “is due”, just as she is. Nothing will stop the train until it arrives at its destination and the baby is delivered. In a world where there is usually a “fix” for everything, where freewill is paramount, the woman has no choice but to deliver her body to this process she cannot control.

As such, Plath’s poem is not a bitter whinge about her own condition, but a pregnancy poem that can be offered to all mothers as their great day approaches. Plath empathises with many of the conflicting emotions that most expectant mothers will have. The poem is a giant metaphor, the title is a metaphor in itself, the structure is another and every phrase used is yet another.

The copyright of the article Metaphors by Sylvia Plath – Layers of Meaning in American Poetry is owned by James Parsons. Permission to republish Metaphors by Sylvia Plath – Layers of Meaning in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.