Explication of “a Birthday Present” by Sylvia Plath

George B 11/18/11 Explication of A natal day acquaint by Sylvia Plath For m any readers, the draw of Sylvia Plaths poetry is distinctly linked to her support as well as the rely to pole her life. As Robert Lowell states in the forward of Ariel, This poetry and life ar not a c atomic number 18er they tell that a life, even when disciplined, is simply not value it (xv). A Birthday Present, pen by Plath in September of 1962 and hauntingly save in her accept voice on audio in October of that same year, is s merchant shiptily one of the many songs that comprise the solicitation titled Ariel.Its allusion to self-annihilation is unmistakable. Its main write up is the escape from life that remnant provides. Plaths life as well as her desire to end it is well documented, mainly because she has chosen to record her tormented organism in her prose and poetry. M. D. Uroff states, . . . she bewilder the verbalizer herself at the center of her verses in such a way as to make h er psychological vulnerability and shame an embodiment of her subtlety . . . we should reconsider the nature of the utterer in Plaths numberss, her relationship to the poet, and the extent to which the poems are confessional (104).The novel, The Bell Jar, chronicles her college years and first prove at self-destruction, and her poetry, primarily in the exhibition in Ariel, provides glimpses into her state of mind. She interjects herself into her work so unintelligiblely that it is unmistakable that the vocalizer system in the poetry is Plath herself. With that firmly in mind, explicating this poem becomes a quest into the months that preceded her taking her own life on February 11th 1963. A symbol apply in the poem A Birthday Present is the wipe out The veil and what it may conceal is a theme that permeates the poem in two-fold forms.In line 1 when the loud verbalizer system says, What is this, ass this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful? The speaker continues in the accompanying lines to question not moreover what it is scarcely for whom it is for. In line 16, Now on that destine are veils, shimmering worry curtains and in lines 17 and 18 veils are compared to the light distinct material that covered the kitchen window as well as the misty atmosphere in January one would imagine she dictum from her flat in England. And once over again in lines 55-57 when she says Only let master the veil, the veil, the veil.If it were demolition I would admire the deep gravity of it, its judgment of convictionless eyes. Here she wants to let down the veil and face it star on, and in the case of death, embrace it. This is sure not the first time that the speaker has entertained the notion of ending her life. The speaker mentions in line 13 and 14 that she does not want a usher as she is only live by accident and in line 15, I would hold back killed myself gladly that time any possible way. Plath herself had a botched suicide attempt in her p ast that she utilise as a plot point in her novel, The Bell Jar.Biographer Caitriona O Reilly chronicles the accident in 1953 after Plath finished a guest editorship at Mademoiselle in New York City. After prescription quiescency pills and Electroconvulsive therapy to combat depression, Plath attempted suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills (356). The accident, as the speaker refers to it, directly relates to the f playact that she was found alive and nursed back to health at least physically. There is to a fault an persuasion of what is expected from society of the speaker of the poem.Women in the 1950s were expected to get marry and procreate, not getting seriously provoke in education and careers. These things would prevent a charr from leading a blissful and normal feminine life (Bennett 103). Bennett also speaks of this, Like most women in the mid-fifties Sylvia Plath appears to have accepted the basic assumptions of this philosophical system or ideology even thou gh she knew that in many respects they ran antagonistic to the springs of her own nature(103). This certainly flew in the face of what Sylvia Plath was about.The speaker in the poem seems to lament this in lines 7 and 8, touchstone the flour, cutting off the surplus, / adhering to rules, to rules, to rules. Likewise, Is this one for the declaration? / My God, what a laugh (9-10). Certainly, the ideals of society put forth in these lines, a womans place is in the kitchen and the resemblance to the virgin birth of Christ, are an impossibleness for an educated and tormented Plath. The speaker seems to have no other choice than ending the suffering.In the poem, there is a conflict concerning the end of the speakers life. In lines 21-26 the speaker is in essence asking for the substitute of death and references the religious theme of the ratiocination supper in line 26, Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate. Line 27-29 states the fuss with the present that is wa nted, I know wherefore you leave cigarette not give it to me, / You are terrified/ the world imp finesse go up in a shriek, and your fling with it,. The speaker continues to lobby for relief, I will only take it and go quietly. You will not even hear me readable it, no paper crackle, / No falling ribbons, no scream at the end. / I do not think you reference work me with this discretion (Lines 33-36). The shame attached to suicide is overwhelming, not necessarily for the victim scarce those left to deal with societal pressures associated with it. The speaker seems to take this into account as she contemplates the act it is more authoritative that those left behind are unscathed than the torture that the speaker is going through. Discretion is more important than directly confronting the underlying problems.Finally, the speaker appeals to the sponsors sense of duty when she describes how her death has been occurring incrementally but not nearly as quickly as she would like. The use of lyric like motes (small particles, like the dust particles that can be seen floating in the sunlight) and century monoxide (deadly despite being undetectable by smell or sight) described as sweetly breathable in the lines 37-43 are used to show how the speaker has suffered for years from unseeyn or nearly invisible things for kind of a long time To you they are only transparencies, clear air, (Line 37). Let it not come by word of mouth, I should be sixty/ By the time the whole of it was delivered, and to numb to use it (Lines 53-54). The speaker is frustrated by the gift mail carrier insistence that death come soft the speaker cannot wait that long. A Birthday Present essentially reads like a suicide note trying to calm down those left behind that death is genuinely a grand relief. Lowell elegantly sums it up Suicide, father-hatred, self-loathingnothing is too much for the downcast gaiety of her control.Yet it is too much her arts immortality is lifes degradation. The surprise, the shimmering, uncover birthday present, the transcendence into the red eye, the caldron of morning, and the lover, who are always waiting for her, are death, her own abrupt and defiant death (Forward xiv). Defiant in death as she was in life, one can only hope that Plath has found what she was missing.Works Cited Bennett, Paula. My Life A Loaded Gun, Female Creativity and womens liberationist Poetics. Boston Beacon Press, 1986. Lowell, Robert. Foreword. Ariel. New York starting time Perennial Classics, 1999. xiii-xvi. Print. O Reilly, Caitriona. Sylvia Plath. N. p. , n. d. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. lthttp//www. us. oup. com/us/pdf/americanlit/plath. pdfgt. Plath, Sylvia. A Birthday Present. Ariel. New York branch Perennial Classics, 1999. 48-51. Print. Uroff, M. D.. Sylvia Plath and Confessional Poetry a Reconsideration. The Iowa examine8. 1 (1977) 104-115. JStor. Web. 16 Nov. 2011. lthttp//www. jstor. org/stable/20158710gt.