Carm
Professor S. Tiura
Women’s Poetry
Snakes and Stones, Medusa in Sylvia Plath’s Poetry Compared to That of Others
With razor sharp claws, bronze wings and snakes for locks, Medusa
could petrify a man with just a gaze. Sylvia Plath, Carol Ann Duffy, and Frieda
Hughes all call on the symbol of Medusa in their poetry. The reasons they use
Medusa differs amongst them all but at the same time works in the same way.
Medusa is a mythological Greek figure associated with stone imagery and
grotesqueness in women’s poetry. Duffy is transforming herself into Medusa
because of the love for her man; Plath is calling on Medusa to portray solitude
in women as well as the ugliness of her and her mother’s relationship; Hughes is
imitating her mother’s confessional self analysis poetry to move from the art
of painting to the art of poetry.
Sylvia Plath’s Medusa is a
gorgon in the same sense of the mythical creature but different in the sense
that the gorgon is a representation of her and her mother’s relationship.
Medusa is a metaphor that Plath is taming well and assists in the focusing of
the reader’s attention to the poem’s true meaning. Sylvia Plath is also calling
upon what she is reading from Sigmund Freud and his interpretation/theory of dreams
to help her with the confessional poetry. Confessional poetry is a poem in
which one admits and reveals private lurking secrets and feelings within
themselves. The way Plath is calling on Freud’s ideas surrounding dreams is by
taking the dreams that Medusa appeared in and incorporating the meaning of her
as well as her image into the poetry. From this, one gets possibly the most
intimate and revealing types of writing. The reason this writing of the dreams
is so intimate is because, not only is one able to read the feelings that an
author may say they feel which can differ between readers as well as author and
readers; but readers are seeing the dreams, the subconscious thoughts of the
writer’s mind. Plath is self analyzing herself through her dreams and discovers
how the dreams are about her and her mother’s relationship as well as that she
needs to be stern and solitary. The way that Plath is able to do this is by
using her knowledge of Freud’s theories of id, ego and superego. The id is the
part of the person of which is the uncontrollable urges or thoughts that people
are very critical of due to their nature (sexual urges, deep thoughts that are
inappropriate to be said in society). The ego is the part of the person that is
more realistic and tame, whereas the superego is the common ground between the
ego and the id. The superego filters the thoughts and urges of a person is
dispensing them accordingly. The thoughts that Plath is experiencing in this
case are about her mother and how she is willing to try and work things out,
but how she is hating her mother at the same time. Medusa is how the superego
is dispensing these thoughts outwards. Plath is sharing the image of Medusa in
her writing. A reader can fully comprehend the grotesqueness and stone cold
heartedness surrounding the image of Medusa with the images. The image of stone
and grotesqueness are tying words to Medusa because of her horrid appearance
and the fact that one gaze upon her will turn someone into stone. The way that
the stone imagery is tying into Plath’s poem is by showing how a woman needs to
be solitary at times, she needs to put aside her womanly duties and do what she
needs to do to complete her.
Carol Ann Duffy is writing her poem Medusa from the view point of herself in a self analytical way,
much like Plath. Duffy is writing about how her suspicion of her husband’s
infidelity is making her feel like Medusa. The reason she is transforming into
Medusa and not utilizing other metaphors available is because the Medusa
metaphor is the perfect metaphor to use for the situation. Just like Plath’s
incorporation of it into her poem, Duffy says with it that the relationship or
suspicion in the relationship is as grotesque as Medusa’s looks. The stone
imagery is also easy to notice in Duffy’s poem because she needs to be happy
and not live in secrets even if that means accusing her lover of infidelity or
finding out that he is baring his love upon another. Duffy with this poem is
saying that solidarity is important and women are able to live free of secret
and suspicion.
Frieda Hughes is Sylvia Plath’s daughter who is wanting to live out
of her mother’s shadow and work as a painter. However her mother’s shadow is
always over her. The only thing left for the unsuccessful artist to try is writing
and cash in on her mother’s name. Hughes begins with a few small time poems and
eventually writes Medusa to build of
her mother’s poem Medusa. Hughes’ is
basing her poem more on the imagery of Medusa rather than applying it to a real
life situation. This portrayal of Medusa is an explanatory version of the
Medusa poems by Duffy and Plath. Hughes explains in her poem how even just
standing before Medusa you turn to stone, and how her snake locks are hard to
ignore. These are ways of women acting out the solidarity and the grotesqueness
of situations between people. In Hughes’ poem she mentions how everything she
is staring at is turning to stone and she is making no room to sympathize for
any of it. this is the imagery of the stone and solidarity of which women need
to make it through the obstacles in life. Hughes is making a representation of
the grotesqueness in situations when she is saying you can’t stop yourself from
looking nor stop yourself from hearing, because of how loud and ugly she is.
Hughes, Duffy, and Plath all write about Medusa in a different yet
similar way. Medusa is a powerful metaphor and very interesting aspect of which
is stone imagery. Plath paves a path by writing Medusa for new women writers who feel similar to her and need the
perfect metaphor. Plath’s self analysis and confessional poetry are replicated
in many different poems by men and women.
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