Custom «Analysis of the Edge by Silvia Plath» Essay Paper

Sylvia Plath wrote the poem "Edge" six days prior to committing suicide on 11^th day of February1963 (Alexander 2). The poem is alleged to be the author's last work. The form bears an exciting feature. It has ten stanzas, with each having only two lines, seized in an enjambment. The second line of every stanza is at all times half of the building and denotation of the first line of the subsequent stanza. Therefore, the break of verse is also an edge linking the stanzas, which forms an additional equivalence between form and substance of the poem. The sentences are only concluded once they traverse the edge amid the two stanzas, and character in this piece of literature only appears to discover calm and "achievement" when crossing an edge. In the most common interpretations, this edge is referred to as the one occurring between living and dying. This poem does not pursue a specific rhyme scheme. It has various remarkable inner rhymes or assonant constructions such as child-coiled, sweet-bleed, toga-over, flows-scrolls, and rose-close. These terms do not essentially rhyme in the stern sense but they put in to the tranquil tone of this piece of literature and make stronger the plentiful images given. Two common literary devices, that is metaphor and metonymy will be examined, and afterward discover how they have been used in the 'Edge'.

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Metaphor Use in the "Edge"

Prior to attempting to examine the poem according to these values, it is foremost essential to appreciate the concepts concerned in the analysis. Thus, metaphor and metonymy are intrinsically related to dissimilar literary forms. Normally by assessment, metaphor is commonly found in poetry, whereas prose is the ordinary field of metonymy. Such a merit can be attributed firstly to the declaration that "poetry is more aligned to the sign according to Jakobson's thinking (1990:132). These signs as used in literature in an ideal world give a brief and quick point of reference readers who are familiar with the speech in which the poem is written. In this way, they carry out a dual task. By being involved in a piece of the reader's perception already known to him or her, the comparison derived by the metaphor, though weird, is typically given a concrete grip and therefore made more reachable and easier to practice. To add on this first task, solid signs like these; play a role as architectural agents. On the other hand, more so, they serve to make it tight the overall structure of the poem, making it cheap on the sum of room desired for it to convey its message across. Jakobson hence indicates metaphor as being "the line of the smallest amount of resistance" (1990:133) in poetry.

Looking critically at the poem, there are indeed, at least six instances of indirect association between assorted figures in the twenty lines of the poem. The first is a metaphor, which extends from line number 1 through to line number 5. The reader gets to know "The woman" (line 1) who presented as the main topic of the poem. Along these preliminary lines, she is compared with a Greek figurine or statue, one likely suggestion being that she stands for an article of supreme splendor. Therefore, she can be illustrated as "perfected" (Moramarco 142). This metaphor is developed more by the portrayal of her attire, in that the folds of her robe are by several visual analogy associated to "scrolls" of paper like those normally found in olden world.

The woman's protrusion of physical aptness to the external world is not complete or mirrored by additional aspects of her life. This deviation in her look is clear from the picture presented of her kids, who as well form basic element of the imagery in the poem, and in her apparently unsure approach towards them. In the initial case, no child is described in provisions that would typically be predictable of a loving mother. Both are assumed to be "dead" (9), but this allegation does not appear to bring out any thoughts of warmth or softness from her. By her description, they have "coiled" themselves as a "serpent" (9) might, each adjacent to a "Pitcher of milk" drained from the woman's breasts which are "now empty" (Moramarco 144)). They are hence illustrated not as innocent or undamaging partakers of their mother's milk, although nearly as parasites, sucking something very important, the life force as it were, from her. Additionally, it is possible for the reader to analyze these children more critically. They can plausibly serve up as symbols for poetry themselves, the yield of Plath's original impulses, and her offspring in literature.

However, prior to considering these "self-attached and 'biological trap' motifs let us look into Plath's creative metaphors a little more. The metaphors used in "Edge" are not neglected or without a model of the author's work of art. The previously mentioned picture of the woman's empty breasts certainly has a complement in other work of art done by Plath for example "Barren Woman," which was written after Plath's second kid. The annulled left in her womb after parturition can be connected in this instance to the one in the mind of the writer that repeatedly follows the winning result of the imaginative development.

The answer to the recurring event from which the woman cannot escape appears to lie in the mother's reaction to the obligation on her body by the children. In "Edges" context, the woman appears to concentrate on her internal self and escape from the external environment. At the point where this takes place in the poem, metaphors are blended with striking simile to achieve the desired description. The reader reads that the woman "has folded them back into her body as petals of a rose close" (12-14). The role played by the closing rose petals can be compared through a conjunction to the way a woman withdraws from the external environment and restricts herself to her own shell. In turn, the petals are referred as "them" a vague word, which seems to have possible reference to the woman's breasts and her kids.

The previous of these interpretations enforces the parasitic picture of the children introduced straight away in the earlier outline of the poem. If the kids are in fact in the flesh dead or living, they appear to stay put in some manner linked to their mother's body, and therefore she cannot as thus far (if at all ) free herself bodily from them. Maternity has thus revolved around the genetic web trap around her. In brief, the kids are as much a component of her body similar to the breasts.

Metonymy Use in the "Edge"

This literary tool can be defined as one topic leading to a different through their way of interaction and flow or in other terms; two items in a specified work are related through their spatial closeness to each other. Consideration is drawn away from story aspects such as "plan" and "characters" and sidetracked in the site in space and time. Due to this metonymy is distinctive from metaphor, given that metaphor does not depend on any inbuilt distance association between the objects under assessment. This has been shown by earlier examples. To a certain extent, the poem draws on other relations such as visual to convey the message.

As earlier established in the poem, the woman appears with a robe, which is referred to as 'toga," which is presented to the interest of the reader by way of a dramatic explanation of it. At this time, the metaphor ("the scrolls") combines with metonymy to highlight the Greek figurine image (Friedman 24). In a comparable vein, focusing somewhere else on the woman's body brings added characteristics of her life. "Her naked Feet" (Plath 6-7) contain a sense of exhaustion, and yet accomplishment as well, about them (they appear to imply that they have come so far, and it is over (7-8). The piece in seclusion conveys message to the reader concerning the whole poem.

The use of metonymy is not restricted to the portrayal of the woman. It also greatly moves to the manner in which the moon is portrayed, especially to sounds that she seems to release in the last line of the poem. The close in question is the extremely mysterious declaration "Her blacks crackle and drag" (Plath 20).The utilization of blacks of the moon at this point seem to match to the metonymic pattern described. Similar to the woman's feet, they are just a portion of something better than they are, and provide the reader a suggestion of the other uniqueness of their owner.

In summation, "Edge" is an exciting and precious case study due to the way in which it gives evidence of the merit between metaphor and metonymy, and nonetheless concurrently refutes it. It is no doubt that both metaphorical and metonymic basics are contained in "Edge," even functioning in tandem at one point in the poem. The close existence of these literary tools in the same work thus appears to provide a lie to any argument of mutual exclusivity between them. This clear paradox appears to lift a vital position about literary genres and modes of appearance in them. The rule indicating which of these tools can be engaged in literature is thus not as well elaborated as Jakobson claims.