Close- Reading of a Literary Text: Metaphors by Sylvia Plath
At the time this poem was written, it was a standard practice for women to grow up, get married, and have a family. They weren’t encouraged to get an education or a job and they certainly didn’t abstain from having children. Most women accepted their fate as a caregiver and mother, with the exception of a few, including the speaker of this poem. This speaker, for reasons unknown, be it financial or emotional, conformed to the status quo and had a family. The reader can see that she is unhappy in this poem through her word choice, comparison, and juxtaposition. By looking at this poem, we can see a cry of jealousy from the mother of her unborn child, which most readers don’t see; this…show more content… Her word choice in the statement “Boarded the train there’s no getting off” suggests that she feels trapped by this pregnancy, like she wanted to do more with her life and this child is holding her back from reaching her potential. It shows that she is going to be miserable waiting for the next nine months. She also says, “I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.” This shows the reader that she feels no emotional attachment, and even resentment, to this baby. This is odd for a newly pregnant mother because they tend to bond with their unborn child as the pregnancy progresses. She says she feels like a vessel for the baby, providing only what it needs from her and nothing more. She says, “Money’s new-minted in this fat purse.” The money that is new and fresh represents her baby and all the opportunities it will have in its life, opportunities that she feels have been taken away from her. She calls herself a purse because the only job of a purse is to carry the money, the money is what has all the opportunities to do things. The ‘money’ could be everything she couldn’t be because she decided to have a…show more content… Elephants, historically, were never used for any hard labor task. They are big, clumsy, and slow which means that humans never needed to use them as they would a horse for transportation or an ox for farming. Elephants also don’t provide anything useful to humans such as a cows’ milk or a chicken’s eggs. Consequently, an elephant’s sole purpose in life is to reproduce and make more of its kind. She relates to the elephant because women were conditioned to believe that their only job was to make babies. She thinks that if that is her only job, then nothing separates her from the elephant. She might as well have not had any talents at all because they have been wasted. She compares the baby to rare, high quality, expensive things such as; red fruit, ivory, and fine timbers because she knows that since the baby is a part of her, it will be special. She helped make this baby, so she is confident that some of her talents will be passed on and that the baby will grow to be a rare and highly sought-after person. She also compares herself to a stage and a house to show how her baby is using her. In her eyes, her baby is selfish and takes what it needs from her without caring about what she is losing in the process. She says she is being used as a house because the baby is living inside her and relying on her for protection as well as