Transcript CHILD” - Miss O' Connell's English Class

“CHILD”
By Sylvia Plath
Pg. 196
“Child”
• Read the text
• General class discussion – first
impressions.
Content of poem
Language
Themes
Pre-reading:
• Context:
• This poem was written in 1962 after the
birth of Sylvia’s second child, Nicholas.
• Unfortunately the birth of this child
coincided with a very painful time for
Plath, during which her marriage broke up.
• Ted, moved to London with his lover,
leaving a bitter Plath with two children in
Devon.
• On top of Plath’s own mental anguish [over
marriage breakdown] it seems that her
depression could also be classed as
postpartum.
• [Symptoms include sadness, fatigue,
changes in sleeping and eating patterns,
reduced libido, crying episodes, anxiety,
and irritability. ]
• Postpartum depression may lead mothers
to be inconsistent with childcare.
• Women diagnosed with postpartum
depression often focus more on the
negative events of childcare.
• Plath in this poem begins in a positive light
in Verse One, however, relapses as the
lyrics unfold.
CONTENT OF THE
POEM:
• The poem begins with the speaker
(Plath) celebrating the beauty of her
child’s eyes.
• In the beginning, she is hopeful to fill
these eyes with “color and ducks” –
to stimulate her child’s imagination
[nurturing]
• Nature/Natural references Flowers: white, innocent, delicate,
youthful “without wrinkle”.
• Pool: naturally reflecting positive,
exuberant images of the child’s
fulfilled life.
• Verse four sees a shift in mood:
colours fade to “dark...without a
star”
• The image of “troublous wringing of
hands” highlights the Plath’s
frustration and disenchantment with
her mother-role
The Title
• Why is this poem entitled “Child”?
• Entitled “Child”, it is a poem about a nameless
child who has been brought into a dark, uncertain
yet beautiful world.
• However, because of the relationship this child
shares with his mother [who is depressed] his
existence also becomes dark and colourless.
• Nameless unattached to her newborn child
Plath’s journal entry…
• “I felt very proud of Nicholas, and
fond. It had taken a night to be sure
I liked him...”
In 2009, aged 47,
Nicholas, himself,
commited suicide.
Did he ever have a
chance in life?
Language
• Opening stanza uses joyful and optimistic
language – a rarity in the selection we [I]
have studied.
• Her poetry is decorated, again, with
colour. Colour, for Plath in this poem,
represents living, vitality and positivity:
“color and ducks”. Colourless (“dark”)
represents depression.
• The metaphor of “The zoo of the new” is
so rich with meaning; a world of variety,
learning and newness.
• She uses a playful, childlike language in the
life she envisages for her child.
• Image of the child: “April snowdrop,
Indian pipe” – flowers. What do they
represent in this poem? [in comparison to
“Poppies?”
• Alliteration “w” in stanza three – “without wrinkle”
captures the smoothness and clarity of newborn
skin and juxtaposes the lone “wringing of hands”
in the final stanza which captures the poet’s
sense of bewilderment.
• Assonance [repetition of vowels]: ‘colour and
ducks, the zoo of the new’.
Note the ‘u’ sound repeated four times here: the
‘ou’ in ‘colour’, the ‘u’ in ‘ducks’, the ‘oo’ in ‘zoo’ and
the ‘ew’ of ‘new’. This musical touch gestures
towards a nursery rhyme effect/ the cooing of a
baby.
• Return of the broad vowel sounds in
the final stanza: “troublous”, “dark”,
“without”, “star”
• Tercets (3 line stanzas) are linked
together by a series of run-on lines. This
use of enjambment allows Plath to create a
soothing, gentle and almost “rockabye”
momentum.