Explore how Plath represents different relationships in her poems.

A common feature in Plaths poetry is an exploration of relationships; an examination of her sentiments towards others through verse. It could easily be proposed that this was in fact Plaths way of coming to terms with and understanding her own feelings, considering that the primary relationships that she contemplated were with her father, children and other women three of the most dominant relationships she experienced in her life. However, the unusual and perturbing light Plath sheds on these relationships with her chosen words in the poems, suggest that that her realisation of these relationships were far from resolved by documenting them on paper. Both Daddy and Electra on Azalea Path are reflections of Plaths relationship with her father. Their relationship, or lack of, was something that evidently troubled her greatly in adult life, after he died when she was eight. In Electra, Plath describes her transition from denial of his death, in her hibernaculum to when she woke on Churchyard Hill to realise the significance of her loss. This poem is to some extent an acknowledgment of how warped her perception of her father had become. She constantly refers to the fantasies and fictions that she had developed to fill the cavity she thought that he had left in her life. For example, she first considers herself God-fathered, toying with the idea of her father being divine, idealising him as a figure of reverence, or in fact that she had none at all, in which case she had suffered no loss. This conception of her father heavily contrasts to the metaphors she uses for him in Daddy, when she takes the polar perspective, comparing him to Hitler, with a Mein-Kampf look.* Later in Electra Plath juxtaposes artificial imagery with organic imagery as a metaphor to contemplate how to preserve her fathers memories. The basket of plastic evergreens had been placed by the grave next to her fathers, suggesting that memories she has with any sense of permanence had in fact been placed there by another, whether these be from her mother or other sources. Azalea flowers by disparity bloom briefly but are evergreen. By mentioning these in her poem, Path eludes that it may have occurred to her that a healthy, if brief relationship with her father before letting the memories fade and die naturally would have a more natural permanence than clutching at imitative and false ones. This thought, though, is fleeting, for it gives way to more fantastical comparisons between her father and the Greek hero Agamemnon. The Electra Complex is debatably not something developed further than its resonance in the poems title, but its inclusion seems intentional, beyond the connection with Agamemnon in the myth. If so, this would have manifold implications their relationship, suggesting that romantising her father as a mythical hero was something beyond admiration. Her bold penultimate line depicting herself as hound-bitch, daughter, friend seems to be a reference to what she perceives her relationship with her father to be, what it was in reality, and what she wished it could have been. Hound-bitch is here the shocking descriptive choice, but it connects with the sense of guilt she coveys in the last line It was my love that did us both to death. This would perhaps suggest why there is a blue razor rusting at her throat. Her guilt, perhaps for exaggerating and warping her memories to become

Jessica Stanier

artificial, seems to set her poised for suicide. Daddy can then be taken to be her attempt at escaping this guilt by further demonising her father.
*In Daddy, Plath also bears a religious reference to her father by describing him as a bag full of God before proceeding to condemn him as a didactic figure in her life (a brute like you).

Daddy, like Electra also opens conveying a sense of sanctuary and a denial of their brief relationship she has had for thirty years. To describe herself as living like a foot in this black shoe suggests that she had been shielded and cushioned from reality by the shoe of denial, which does not do, any more, as a shoe cushions a foot from a rough and coarse ground. Lamentation and apology of both the lack of development in their relationship and the deprecation in value of her memories for her father are expressed when she says Daddy, I have had to kill you, You died before I had time---. It is as if she feels that in order to overcome the grief she feels for her father, she must shatter her image of him. And so, the poem divulges into a development of Nazi imagery in which Plath becomes the oppressed Jew and her Father Not God but a swastika, becoming the very worst human being imaginable. A cleft in your chin instead of your foot, he becomes a cloven-hoofed devil in her eyes. Plath then justifies her diatribe against her father as method of preventing a relapse in suicidal tendencies, like when At twenty I tried to die and get back to you. Plath describes her new artificial (see Electra) and constructed image of her father as a modelwith a Meinkampf look, and a love of the rack and the screw, again confirming him as a repulsive figure in her life rather than a fatherly figure of admiration. By doing this Plath seems to have succeeded the voices just cant worm through and she has cured herself of guilt and dangerously morbid propensities by way of recasting her memories to reject his importance in her life, so concluding with Daddy, daddy, you bastard, Im through. The other principal relationship Plath scrutinizes in her poetry is of women with children. In The Munich Mannequins sets women the definitive decision of choosing perfection or beauty, or to have children, each with their separate myriad branches of possibility The tree of life and the tree of life. Plaths stance on a womans moral obligation is impervious to speculation: Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children she writes explicitly in the first line. Women unloosing their moonsto no purpose negates the biological purpose of a woman to have children. To not bear a child is to make the absolute sacrifice. It means: no more idols but me by Plath; the ultimate selfish gesture of self-worship. But even Plath here seems a little torn. She speaks in near reverence of these women in oxymorons, in their sulfur loveliness, glittering and digesting, making them seem both repulsive creatures that consume and devour without minds and yet seem oddly attractive. Plath undoubtedly experiences some envy for their beauty even if she knows that ultimately within herself that she believes them ultimately to be intolerable. This makes Plaths own reflection on motherhood in Morning Song and Balloons seem almost hypocritical. In Balloons, Plath again voices her frustration at the limitations that motherhood brings with it, offering explanation as regards to her apparent envy for the freedom of the Munich Mannequins. The balloons themselves, when presented as a metaphor for dreams and aspirations are seen to be destroyed by the presence of a

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child. By describing her dreams as soul-animals, Plath suggests that dreams are such that they require nourishment and that one co-habits with, like a pet or animal, but are irrevocably tied to the inner self. So when the balloon that her son holds squeaks like a cat it is as if the dream itself is protesting against its inevitable destruction by way of her sons own needs and cohabitation that as a mother Plath must attend to instead. The freedom of her dreams/balloons, travelling globes with previously delighted the heart like wishes, meets a violent end, when it is bitten and remains as a red shred in his little fist. The significance of this final phrase is indicative of her surprise, regret and resentment at her child for causing such a personal injury with his seemingly incapable and needy self. Neither in Morning Song does Plath seem to bond well with her child. Again, a sense of biological obligation, like in The Munich Mannequins is emphasized when Plath illustrates herself as cow-heavy to where her childs mouth opens, clean as a cats. These word choices stress the instinctiveness and reduction to animalistic function Plath felt as a mother. And yet there is a particular and peculiar feeling of reverence for her child conveyed within the poem. Comparing her child to goldtook its place among the elements not only demonstrates her value for her child but also a sense of belonging, that the child ought to be there, like a gap in Mendeleevs Periodic Table being filled. A good example of Plaths detachedness and adoration for her baby can be found in her description of the child as a New statue. Evidently the child is of high regard, deserving of a memorial of remembrance and demonstration of importance as in a stature. But Plath also here distances herself from the child, immediately placing her child on a cold plinth rather than in a warm embrace, as would be the obvious inclination. This is perhaps because she knows that the childs requisites will now be prioritised over her own, as developed in Balloons and whilst acknowledging the childs importance by immortalising the child as a statue, she also resents the child and inwardly desires the child to remain static. So Plaths depiction of her relationships though her poetry are altogether contradictory and conflicted. Whilst seeming to be an attempt to gain greater insight into her true feelings, they also reveal ambiguities and abnormal sentiments towards those who would for most people be very close. However, the alternative perspective suggests that the poems were in fact an emotional vehicle for her to overcome grief for her father and post natal depression. In either case, readers are left uncertain as to her true opinions and angles, although it is unclear as to whether Plath knew these herself.

Jessica Stanier