Titled: "Womens' Poetry-Plath and Dickinson" Essay Assignment (2011-08) ENGL 3811

Carmelo Bono

Professor S. Tiaura

ENGL 3811

Nov- 03- 11

Metaphors in Sylvia Plath’s and Emily Dickinson’s Poetry

      I dwell in possibility by Emily Dickinson, houses many different metaphors that help us understand how much Dickinson loves poetry. The poem Metaphors by Sylvia Plath, is coincidentally full of metaphors that reveal the mothering of a life inside of oneself. Thomas McLaughlin writes his paper Figurative Language, where he is speaking on metaphors. Certain parts of his writing may help to clarify any confusion for those unfamiliar with the purpose of a metaphor. Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson are both using metaphors in various ways throughout all of their poetry, to help convey their themes and messages.

      Thomas McLaughlin writes Figurative Language in hope it helps readers understand, how language can be twist and mean different things. Figurative language is holding a number of different subcategories beneath it. Subcategories under figurative language, range anywhere from a metaphor to personification. The passages of McLaughlin’s paper that are relevant to Plath and Dickinson, are the ones to do with metaphors. “A metaphor is a compressed analogy” according to McLaughlin’s Figurative Language, however there are a couple other ways of explaining it. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which one is substituting a true item of which the poem speaks about, for something that is acting in the same manner. An example of a metaphor is when one is referring to love as a rose; or sunrise as the beginning of life and the sunset as the end of life. The metaphor works in a specific way, it is broken down into two things. The two things that compose a metaphor are the tenor, and the vehicle. The tenor is the topic/item which the writer is substituting and the vehicle is the item/thing replacing the tenor. Metaphors do not have to just be a tool in writing; painters, cartoon artists, and screenplay writers are also using them. Metaphors are a great tool to use; they also allow readers to derive many different meanings form one piece of work. It is not uncommon for a reader to finding that a metaphor is more than a metaphor, it is also an allusion. An allusion is a reference to another story, historical event or piece of literature that is of relevance to the meaning of the work. However it is important that people do not confuse symbols and metaphors, it commonly occurs but the two are not the same.

      Emily Dickinson is a female poet from the patriarchal nineteenth century. The poem I dwell in possibility has many metaphors, and holds many meanings for different people. This poem is possibly Dickinson’s vocation into poetry, which can be seen given her metaphors. Dickinson writes poetry for the reason of imagination; she feels that imagination is being lost in the world. Poetry for Dickinson is a way for people to get back in touch with their imagination. In the beginning of Dickinson’s poem she is speaking of two houses. These two houses are possibility and prose, possibility is a metaphor for poetry. Prose itself is a metaphor for the prosaic, which is the mundane. The reason Dickinson is using possibility as a vehicle for poetry is because in poetry there are no limitations. The only limitations in poetry are the limitations of one’s own imagination which means the possibilities for one’s writing are endless. The metaphors in which she is calling prose and possibility two houses, sets up the reader for the rest of the poem which is built on the metaphor of the two houses. The third line “more numerous of windows”, is referring to the poems she has written. Dickinson’s poems are the tenor because their purpose is to allow people to look into the thoughts and feelings of the writer, much like the windows of a house. One could say she is a maker of many windows because she wrote nearly 1800 poems. The next line contains simple supporting words to show that the houses are big metaphors in the poem. She uses the word superior to show that the house of possibility is better and is using the word superior with the word doors as well. “Superior--for Doors--“ is proving that the house of possibility is better and is a lot more receptive to who walks into it. Therefore one can say that the metaphor of the door on the house is larger which is allowing more people into the house of possibility. Stanza two begins with line five “Of Chambers as the Cedars--“. Line five is using the chambers made of cedar as a metaphor building off of the original metaphor. The house is a building of cedar which is a finer material than pine, which the poem suggests the house prose is made of. Line seven of Dickinson’s poem contains a metaphor that is also an allusion to biblical text. Line seven says “And for an Everlasting Roof”, this everlasting roof is everlasting because it is Lebanon wood. The reason she is claiming that the roof of possibility is everlasting and Lebanon wood, is because in the bible the wood is sturdy and never going to waste away. Finally the last line of poem, Dickinson is mentioning a paradise, this paradise is a metaphor for the ecstasy she gets from reading and writing poetry. The metaphors that Dickinson is using are making the house of possibility that much better in everyway, than that of the prose house.

      Sylvia Plath is a female poet from the twentieth century; she experiences a different life than that of Dickinson. Sylvia Plath is a bright young lady who loses her father at an early age, but is very well educated and comes from a good family. Sylvia Plath’s use of metaphor in her poem Metaphors, is making it clear how crucial the use of metaphors in her work really are. Much like Dickinson’s I dwell in possibility, Plath’s Metaphors is dependent on a main metaphor. The poem is about Plath’s experience in which she thinks she is pregnant, and her struggles coping with the changes. The poem itself is mainly a metaphor, the nine lines of the poem and nine syllables make it convincing they are symbolic of the nine months of pregnancy. Plath happens to make it clear metaphor by stating in the beginning line, “I am a riddle in nine syllables”. This is a clear metaphor because Plath has now drilled into our minds the number nine. Jenna Keefe in her essay The Pregnant Riddle, she says that Plath uses “rich metaphors to compare the narrator and different objects in order to make the reader see and feel the point more clearly.”(2008). Line two “An elephant, a ponderous house,” according to Keefe in her essay The Pregnant Riddle, is “how the narrator feels about her body.” (2008).The third line in Plath’s Metaphors, is a physical resemblance to herself pregnant. The metaphors of the elephant, the house and the melon seem to only be metaphors of Plath’s size, and physicality, they hold a deeper meaning. The fruit mentioned in the fourth line “O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!”, also cooperates with the melon. In gardening and harvesting of fruits, the plant is determined of its worth by the fruit of which it bares. Plath’s comparison of herself to fruit is her way of being worried about losing her worth. The ivory that Plath mentions in the fourth line is in relation to the elephant that she earlier notes. Plath considers herself an elephant, a keeper of ivory and feels that her ivory will be taken from her leaving her underappreciated. The fine timber is a reference to the house Plath mentions in line two. She feels that as a house it is not the workmanship and freestanding capabilities that will be admired or of concern, but the one inside the house whom others care about. The metaphor of the elephant, the house and the melon are all metaphors of herself during pregnancy. But more specifically, they are metaphors of her fear. The metaphors of the fruit, the ivory, and the timber are about the child of which she bares. Line five of Plath’s Metaphors “This loaf’s big with yeasty rising.” Is a clear reference to the mothering a child, one can refer to the dead metaphor of a bun in the oven. This dead metaphor refers to a child in the belly of a mother. The sixth line of this poem, is a metaphor for a valued life (her child’s inside of her, the fat purse). Line seven reveals Plath’s fear and worry again, “I’m a mean, a stage, a cow in calf.” Plath is claiming that she is a means to an end, which sets up the next two references in this line. The reference of the stage is Plath saying that no one cares about the stage upon which a play is happening on. The audience only cares about the play, not the stage. The cow in a calf is another reference to her and the fear of mothering another life, she worries she will be an underappreciated cow once she gives birth to her calf. Line eight is a biblical reference used to concluding metaphor and used to sum up the poem. To take one apple from the tree of knowledge, Eve is banned for eternity from the garden. This metaphor is showing us that Plath feels pregnancy is like taking a whole bag of apples. This builds on the fear and worthlessness that has been concerning her throughout the poem. Also one shall note that Plath is eating a bag of green apples, which means they are unripe apples making her sick. The green apples that are unripe can also be a metaphor of her lack of confidence that she is able to go through with motherhood. The final line of the poem, seems make it clear that Plath has made a decision and is willing to live with it, thus the reason “there is no getting off”.

      One will conclude from Sylvia Plath’s Metaphors and Emily Dickinson’s I dwell in possibility, the use of metaphor is quite important to the writing of both authors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

1. Keefe, Jenna L. (2008) ""The Pregnant Riddle": An Explication of "Metaphors" by Sylvia Plath," ESSAI: Vol. 5, Article 27.

Available at: http://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol5/iss1/27

2. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar. Norton Anthology of Literature By Women the Traditions in English Vol 1.New York, N.Y. (2008). Print.

3. Frank Lentricchia, Thomas McLaughlin. Critical Terms For Literary Study. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.1995.Print.