The woman is perfected
Her dead
Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity
Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare
Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.
Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little
Pitcher of milk, now empty
She has folded
Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden
Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.
The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.
She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.
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A Poem
From guest Comrade Aidid (contact)
i walk alone on this empty road. i accept no companion wherever i may go. -
Acceptance
From guest Marie (contact)
I think this is a brilliant poem. Her last poem, and it shows her thoughts and feelings towards death and suicide and how it had tormented her for years. It shows that it no longer tormented her, but she had come to a place where she felt at peace with it. Here are my interpretations of the last 4 lines that I have found some people find difficult to interpret: “The moon has nothing to be sad about, Staring from her hood of bone. She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag.” The moon has nothing to be sad about – she has accepted her death, the moon, emotions, if anything there is finally peace and calmness Staring from her hood of bone. She is used to this sort of thing. She is staring from her mind, her thoughts ( hood of bone) skull. She is so used to having these thoughts, over and over in her mind, she has become indifferent to them. Her blacks crackle and drag. Blacks – metaphor for curtain. It means the curtain is now closing, it crackles and drags. The curtain of her life, her play has now closed, for her it is over. -
one of my favorites by Plath to be sure... especially the last three couplets... stellar darkness..
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all about suicide
i love this poem, i´m german and live in germany, so i dont understand this poem in the way an american/english do, but i see the threatend woman behind this symbols and imagerys, i understand the allusion to saint catherine (bare feet - i´ve read this in a biography), and also the greek necessity ( to get out of disgrace through killing yourself) ...
what means the coiled child, the serpent, pitcher of milk, the garden, the bleeding odors... which part plays the moon? i dont know... -
Wow...I aspire to write this well.
Edited on Jul 21, 11:15 because ''. -
Shelly I totally agree, Sylvia was a wonderful writer.
I love some of the images she uses, especially that last trophe.
"She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag."
Red
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Folding back into herself, and stepping over the edge and succumbing. "The woman has perfected," makes me think there is a pureness in being without pain in the toppling over the edge.
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I think the last poem she ever wrote, which makes it sound even more foreboding than it would've normally.
It's as if she's saying she has nothing else to live for, having already accomplished everything, and yet she's not happy with the results. Being "perfected" sounds more like a facade than anything, especially since she was so determined to -be- perfect in real life. Perfect wife, perfect mother, perfect daughter and student...getting the shock that it's impossible to be all those things and becoming disillusioned has got to be slightly traumatic.. -
i think sylivas poems are just the bst she is one of the best poets that ARE AROUND
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