Tulips by Sylvia Plath Poetry Analysis by Chelin Kusuma Aprida

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Tulips by Sylvia Plath
Poetry Analysis by Chelin Kusuma Aprida


The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in.
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.
I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.
I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons.

They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff
Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.
Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.
The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,
They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,
Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another,
So it is impossible to tell how many there are.

My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water
Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.
They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep.
Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage——
My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,
My husband and child smiling out of the family photo;
Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.

I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat
stubbornly hanging on to my name and address.
They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations.
Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley
I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books
Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head.
I am a nun now, I have never been so pure.

Metaphor Pesonification
Simile
I didn't want any flowers, I only wanted
To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free——
The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,
And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.
It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them
Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet.

The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.
Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe
Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.
Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.
They are subtle : they seem to float, though they weigh me down,
Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color,
A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.

Nobody watched me before, now I am watched.
The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me
Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins,
And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow
Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips,
And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself.
The vivid tulips eat my oxygen.

Before they came the air was calm enough,
Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss.
Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise.
Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river
Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine.
They concentrate my attention, that was happy
Playing and resting without committing itself.

The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves.
The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;
They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,
And comes from a country far away as health.

Figurative Language
Line
Quotation of poem
Kind of Figurative Language
Reason
9
Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut
Simile
It compares her head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff
12
They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps
Simile
It compares the nurses to the gulls
15
My body is a pebble to them
Metaphor
Her body is full of sin
15
They tend it as water
Metaphor
Her body is well cared for by nurses
18
I am sick of baggage
Metaphor
She wants to get rid of all her attachments to the world
19
My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox
Simile
It compares a patent leather to a black pillbox
21
Little smiling hooks.
Metaphor
Showing her intense desire to remain uninterrupted
22
a thirty-year-old cargo boat
Metaphor
She has a heavy life at the age of thirty
28
I am a nun now
Metaphor
She is now pure and innocent
35
Shutting their mouths on it
Personification
The dead have a mouth like human
35
like a Communion tablet
Simile
It compares the dead to a Communion tablet in Christian churches where it is given (means purify)
36
they hurt me
Personification
The tulips can hurt like human
37
I could hear them breathe
Personification
The tulips can be heard breathing like human
38
their white swaddlings, like an awful baby
Simile
It compares the white swaddling of tulips to an awful baby
39
Their redness talks to my wound
Personification
The tulips can talk like human
41
their sudden tongues
Personification
The tulips have tongues like human
44
The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me
Personification
The tulips and the window can turn to her like human
47
the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips
Personification
The sun and the tulips have eyes like human
48
And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself.
Metaphor
She wants to make herself disappear.
49
The vivid tulips eat my oxygen.
Personification
The tulips can eat like human
52
the tulips filled it up like a loud noise
Personification
The tulips can make a loud noise like a human
58
The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals
Simile
It compares the tulips to dangerous animal
59
They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat
Simile
It compares the tulips' mouth to some great African cat's mouth if it opens
62
The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea
Simile
It compares the taste of water to the sea


Poem Explication

'Tulips' is a poem written by an American influential poet, novelist, short story writer, and essayist, Sylvia Plath. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts, United States on 27 October 1932. She finished high school with straight As, won a scholarship to Smith College and Newnham College, where she graduated summa cum laude, and at the age of 23 awarded a Fulbright scholarship to Cambridge, England. She had two children from her marriage in 1956 with Edward James "Ted" Hughes, an English poet and children's writer. She separated with Ted Hughes due to martial crisis in 1962.
Sylvia Plath was a manic-depressive. She suffered throughout her life from insomnia, pneumonia, depression and electroshock treatments. She wrote this poem during her recovery from a surgery in a hospital. She committed suicide by taking sleeping pills and lay in a coma for two days. Then, on 11 February 1963 in London, she found dead (aged 30) in her kitchen from inhaling gas.
In this poem, the speaker gives the tulips human behavior or personification; the tulips can hurt, breathe, talk, move, watch, eat and make a loud noise like human. She compares the tulips by using simile to an awful baby, dangerous animal, and some great African cat's mouth if the tulips' mouth opens which sound terrible. As we know, everybody loves flowers because of its beauty, but she said she didn't want any flowers. The speaker also uses red color for the tulips and it hurts her eyes. Red is emotionally intense color which associated with meanings of anger, danger, pain, fear, blood and stress. It certainly means that she hates the tulips and their vivid color in her room. And one thing that also hurts her is her family's little smiling hook in the photo. Both tulips and her family's photo weigh her down.
The speaker also uses metaphors in this poem. She interprets her body with a pebble. The pebble represents sin and it is well cared for by nurses as water. Water symbolizes passivity, purity, healing and cleansing. The nurses treat her body gently. She also interprets her life at the age of thirty years to a cargo boat. She has let things slip. Cargo is a container. It is heavy and filled with lots of things. Then, she wanted to feel utterly empty and free in her all-white room at the hospital. White is on the walls, the sheets and the nurses' caps. White represents purity and innocence. As she said 'I am a nun now'. The color offers a sense of peace, calm and comfort. It is the opposite with red. But the thing that ties within her irritates her as she said 'I am a sick of baggage'. The 'baggage' may be about her connection with her family that makes her completely blue and emotional. But she is not exactly sad; she loves her peacefulness away from the outside world.
The tulips she has gotten are the symbol of her painful life. She never wanted them. The tulips bother her in her quiet whiteness room where she finds freedom. 'And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself' means she prefers to make herself disappear or even die. She had a very unpleasant life since she lost his father due to diabetes mellitus when she was eight years old, she divorced her husband in early marriage, she had to take care of two children, and she had a mental illness that requires her to meet with a psychiatrist and get electroshock treatments.
That is why; this poem is her frustration's expression over life which she describes through 'the tulips' as objects. Problems in her life are too heavy to bear. And maybe death is one way for her to get freedom.




References
Cooper, Brian. (2003). Sylvia Plath and the depression continuum. JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF MEDICINE Volume 96. http://jrs.sagepub.com/content/96/6/296.full.pdf. Retrieved on 21 May 2016