What shapes
and characterizes the poem is the idea of declaring the personified poems dead.
The topic is introduced in the first line, where the cold, scientific word
"diagnosis" evens out every credible meaning the word "sad"
might once have had. "Diagnosis" also occupies the most important
position at the end of the line and stays in mind because of the short pause the
reader has to make to skip to the next line. The second line features a couple
of warm assonances which stress the idea of a living and growing thing:
"They grew their toes and fingers well enough". Since the first stanza is about the development of
the poems, this stylistic device has a clear function here. The fourth line has
a flowing, moving feeling to it, which makes the reader understand the idea of
walking people. Responsible for that is Plath's use of an alliteration and a
rhyming couple of words in "they missed out on walking about".
The second
stanza illustrates the desperation of the mother (poet) upon losing her
children (poems) by using exclamation marks, in written language equalling
shouting, and a triple anaphora. Also the word "smile" is repeated
four times. This repetition of words mimics the lack of eloquence one has in a
panic situation and even the rather simple "heart-start" rhyme at the
end of the stanza works in this context.
Stanza
three breaks with the structured character of the poem in which up to this
point every sentence ends with a line. Suddenly we have enjambments which
remind of a broken voice. Also the comparison of poems to fish and pigs, with
pigs for some reason being of higher value, has a disturbing effect.
I like how
Plath evokes an uneasy feeling with a description of normally lifeless poems by
comparing them to dying fetuses. Since poems are, as we read in chapter ten,
all about feelings, that is a great accomplishment.
Here is the
poem for you to compare while reading:
These poems do not live: it's a sad diagnosis.
They grew their toes and fingers well enough,
Their little foreheads bulged with
concentration.
If they missed out on walking about like people
It wasn't for any lack of mother-love.
O I cannot explain what happened to them!
They are proper in shape and number and every
part.
They sit so nicely in the pickling fluid!
They smile and smile and smile at me.
And still the lungs won't fill and the heart
won't start.
They are not pigs, they are not even fish,
Though they have a piggy and a fishy air --
It would be better if they were alive, and
that's what they were.
But they are dead, and their mother near dead
with distraction,
And they stupidly stare and do not speak of
her.
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