“Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath dramatizes the clash between perception and reality in the mind of a speaker who has lost a love so vital to her world that she begins to question her own sanity. No formal setting is introduced, which supports a theme of mental instability as it can be inferred that the entire poem is taking place within the speaker’s mind as she struggles to determine the degree of validity that her memories of a past lover hold. The beginning stanza contains the two central ideas of the poem: perception and instability. The poem is a villanelle in iambic pentameter and these concepts are presented through the poem’s two refrains. The first refrain, “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead”, both contrasts and shares parallel structure with the second line, “I lift my lids and all is born again” (1, 2).
The two poems are also different in that in Suicide Note, the young girl has time to think about and give reason as to why she is taking her life. The college girl feels that she has to achieve perfection in everything that she does, and feels a sense of inadequacy. In Out, Out, the boy’s death is sudden (Frost, 1393). In conclusion, there are some similarities and differences in both poems. The authors in both poems portray how short life is, and unpredictable life can be.
Henrik Ibsen depicts how the conscious and subconscious motives and desires are obtained. Kristine Linde is a woman who has had to give up her dreams due to circumstances beyond her control. She was once in love but because her mother “was bedridden and helpless”and she “had to provide for two younger brothers”(Ibsen, 2011, p. 556) she was forced to marry for convenience of the situation. We can tell this has made her look at life in a more realistic and wise view than that of her friend Mrs Nora Helmer the main character. Mrs Linde has had to work hard and was not afforded love and children which she longed to have.
Especially when she reminisces in the final stanza about the time she was young and beautiful, illustrating her complete lack of confidence. Nevertheless, she is still presented as a foul character who threatens the reader, with the line ‘Be terrified’. The poem also ends with the line ‘Look at me now’ which has a double entendre (double meaning). It could be read as a cry of despair or, as a threat – if you did look at Medusa you would die! This leaves the reader feeling conflicting emotions for the character, probably similar to how Medusa herself feels in the poem.
Jamie and Tom. When Anna lost both her sons she was distraught. She wasn’t sure what to do or how to act. With Anna being like this she turns to drugs ‘poppies’ to give her some pain relief and escape from the mourning. Anna quotes "I thought that she could teach me much about how to manage alone as a woman in the world."
In the poem the poet begins to conflict with herself as she believes that she is not of one set race ‘I was there of no fixed nationality’. Throughout the poem the poet begins to show her insecurity as she begins to respond to the presents her aunties bought her from her native land negatively ‘I could never be as lovely as those clothes’. A t the end of the poem the Alvi is unable to resolve her problem as she finishes the poem feeling rather down saying ‘I was there of no fixed nationality’. The poem ‘Hurricane’ is rather similar in the way that it is again autobiographical. In the poem the writer is also in conflict with herself as she has left her motherland Guyana to move to England.
But as I read on further through the lyrics, I realised that this may just be my different interpretations. My first interpretation of the song was the obvious one, about the person expressing these words missing her lover and is longing for him to come back. I find her to be in this song emotionally scarred, deeply in love, lost, sad and helpless, on autopilot with no sense of direction in her life. This interpretation caters for all of these aspects of the song and fits in with all of the words and meanings. My second interpretation of the song is an interesting one.
This poem expresses the pain and sorrow of a battle that someone is fighting against themselves. Someone who is tore between her aging self and her youth. The woman knows that she is no longer a child but she’s having a hard time letting that part of her go because she feels that her youth is the only good thing about her. “Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon,” indicates that the woman turns to those who only throw lies at her, the lies that she wants to hear. Candles and the moon don’t swallow the image of what stands before them yet they reflect off a brightness, a lying goodness.
Besides, 'wringing of hands' and 'ceiling without a star emphasize her concerns to her child and explicit her disappointment towards this horrible world. Disappointment here actually describes a sort of vulnerable status of women in some specific situations relating closely to their children. Furthermore, Plath's Mirror also reveals women's disappointment, but which is different, from aging and her sense of loss. The subject matter, mirror, is personified, symbolising women's constant desire to remain young. .
She feels that this has never been a real part of her life and therefore she has only made it up in her head. In the second stanza, Sylvia is saying that her life was abruptly taken over by and "arbitrary blackness"?. This blackness she is referring to is depression. Following this line is the repeated line, "I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead"?. This is showing that Sylvia is trying to escape from her overwhelming depression.