Overall, I interpreted this poem as Sylvia Plath's writing about her body after she had birthed two children and her husband separated from her. Her lines:
"Waxy stalactites
Drip and thicken, tears
The earthen womb
Exudes from its dead boredom."
To me, I see this as Plath referencing her body as a cave and a dark, dormant cave. Touched long ago, yet now untouched, marked by going through the process of labor. Perhaps "waxy stalactites" refers to the birth of her children. The bio was sure to outline the separation of Plath and her husband and how it showed in her writing and that is what I found myself coming back to with each of her poems.
I find it really interesting you think there is a husband in this poem because i got that it was only a mother and child and not that her body is a cold cave but the outside world is and she doesnt want to birth her child into it when he is safe and warm inside her now. But then i also read it another way. So the poem i feel can take so many different paths and ever interpretation is legit.
ReplyDeleteThis poem was a little hard for me to understand, but I too got the idea that she did not want to have her baby leave her body. I think the cave that she was referring to was her womb, but not that it was dark and cold. She wrote, "The earthen womb/ Excludes from its dead boredom./ Black bat airs". I think that she felt that when the baby was inside her, in her cave, it was safer then letting it out into the world, the dark and scary part. Another thing that made me think that she was referring to the outside world as the dark and the cave as her loving and safe womb, was "I have hung our cave with roses/ with soft rugs/", I feel her womb was the cave of comfort and the outside world was the scary place.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't looked at the cave referring to her body! This is a interesting way to look at it and I can see it now that you said it!
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