Widow by Sylvia Plath
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Comment upon the meaning and effect of the following phrases:
o “the word consumes itself”
o “The dead syllable”
o “stale air, Fusty remembrances”
o “The voice of God is full of draftiness”
o “the compassionate trees bend in”
o “Hand folding hand”
o “Like Blue Mary’s angel, dovelike against a pane”
Ensure you look at the lines surrounding these phrases, trying to look at how the ideas
develop.
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Underline all words or phrases related to the extended ‘paper’ metaphor.
Comment upon the meaning and effect of this.
Identify and discuss images of life, death and religion
Discuss the use of nature (including flora and fauna) to explore ideas
Examine Plath’s use of punctuation and question the effect.
It has been suggested the influence of Frost’s “Design” on “Widow,” is
significant (http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/hughes-meyers-2022).
What are your thoughts?
Robert Frost - Design
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth -Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth -A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?-If design govern in a thing so small.
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Start to look at another poem in the collection of Plath poems that you have.
Begin to make a table that looks at similarities in techniques, purpose, style and
themes that are explored in the poems that you have looked at so far.