CARMEN PASCUAL SASTRE
PAPER IX
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Cinderella |
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http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6642&poem=32954
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http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6616&poem=30213
Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes are two important figures in the English poetry of the 19th century, who were married for seven years. The poetry of both is highly illustrative of their individual biographies. And in the case of Plath, her work is directly related with her relation with the man who was once her husband. When they met each other in 1956, both of them had already written and published some works, so they shared the same interest in poetry. They deeply fell in love with each other and after some months they get married. But Ted Hughes’s handsomeness and predisposition to women together with the continuous psychological breakdowns of Sylvia lead their marriage to the end. Some time after Ted left Sylvia for another woman, Sylvia Plath committed suicide in a tragic way, with the gas of the oven.[1]
The poems I have chosen Cinderella, from Plath, and Lovesong, from Hughes, both speak about love. Both poems share the main topic but each of them reflects the personality of each half of the poet couple, even though Ted and Sylvia have several affinities. In her poet, Sylvia Plath basically tells the well-known story of Cinderella. But if we read between the lines, we can find a part of the author’s life in this ‘fairy tale poem’. She uses a children’s story in which a girl deeply in love can enjoy of the presence of her lover, amid a luxurious atmosphere. Plath depicts a marvellous and ideal scene which ends abruptly, and obviously does not lasts forever. Don’t you think that kind of story could be quite similar to Plath’s love story? She also could be happy with her husband and their children, but casually enough it did not last for so much time.
To describe this joyous climate in which the Cinderella stayed, she uses romantic words such as: scarlet, hair flaring, a fan of silver, rondo, tilted violins, glass palace or rose candles. However during the last lines, the nearest she is to the end, the saddest words she uses: strange, guilt-stricken halts, pales or the caustic ticking. But, with no doubt the essence of this poem as a whole is the romanticism, the dreams, a sweet and ideal love, which clearly contrasts with the passionate love which Ted Hughes describes in Lovesong.
On the other hand, knowing the unbalanced state of mind of Sylvia Plath, this based on fairy tale poem, could be also interpreted as a constant in the life of the writer. Just as the clock marks a reality Cinderella can not escape from, Sylvia Plath can be understood in this poem as representing a sad and constant reality that torments her. This could be a possibility since her father died when she was only eight years old, and this has been the principal cause of most of her breakdowns. But what is not open to discussion in this poem is the ability of Plath for writing poetry. She managed to turn into an adult and incredible poem in the most beautiful way what was a children story.
On the other hand, Ted Hughes poem shows a different way of writing about love. In Lovesong he is direct since the first sentence: He loved her and she loved him. He speaks about love in a savage, fierce, passionate, sometimes even violent manner. He uses verbs as: to suck, to gnaw, to nail down, or to topple; and sentences as: Her smiles were spider bites or His whispers were whips and jackboots. But probably the hardest are those in lines 32 and 33:
His
promises were the surgeon’s gag
Her
promises were took the top off his skull
What is striking is that in a way Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath are expressing the same, despite the different way of manipulating the language they use. Therefore, in line 19 Hughes summarizes what Plath’s Cinderella feels: Where the real world will never come.
This poem has also a lot to do with Hughes’ personality. The fierceness of this poem claims that he liked women. He felt attracted to several women, so he must be very passionate with the female sex. It is not by chance that he got married three times. Another issue worth mentioning is the fact that while Hughes explains in his Lovesong poem actions that happen during a night of passion between two people, Plath uses a love story based on feelings and illusions. They use a different treatment of love. While the masculine version adopts the sensual/sexual part of the love experience, the female point of view describes it as a fairly tale. And maybe the feelings of both authors are the same.
As recognition of the work of these two poets, they both have been awarded with countless prizes. In the case of Plath, it was posthumously when she became more famous than she had been while alive. The circumstances of her life and her death helped add to the "mythos" of the Plath story. But apart from this fact, Plath has been considered a deeply honest writer, whose ceaseless self-scrutiny has given a unique point of view to psychological disorder and to the theme of the feminist-martyr in a patriarchal society. On the other hand, the image of Ted Hughes has been sometimes criticised by those who accuse him of the death of Sylvia, but in the professional frame he is also brilliant.[2]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Nina Baym, The Norton Anthology of American Literature,
Volume E; American literature since 1945, 6th edition, Norton
and Company, New York/London, 2003, Sylvia Plath (pages: 2967-2979).
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/splath.htm, ‘Sylvia
Plath’,1997 (09-05-06)
http://www.sylviaplath.de/ , ‘Sylvia Plath’,Anja
Beckmann, Leipzig (Germany), 2006 (10-05-06)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath, ‘Sylvia
Plath- Wikipedia’, board@wikipedia.org,
2006, (10-05-06).
http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6642&poem=32954, ‘Cinderella–Sylvia Plath’, ‘Lovesong- Ted Hughes’ PoemHunter.com, 2006, (09-05-06).
http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6616&poem=30213