Silvia Plath's Metaphors '

Silvia Plath’s “Metaphors” is read through the words of a pregnant woman who finds herself in an unideal situation. A Metaphor is defined as “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison” which is what “Metaphors” by Sylvia Plath inherently is full of. The overarching metaphor is subtle, but the meaning is clear. “Metaphors” exemplifies the expression “beating around the bush” as the meaning and overarching metaphor is understood without referring to the speaker’s pregnancy by word. The poem “Metaphors” is used as a metaphor to show the evolution of a lost woman who became unexpectedly pregnant to a more mature accepting woman of her situation and in a sense solving her “riddle”.

The poem is divided into nine lines to signify the usual months of pregnancy, but this is not the only use of

The first line of “Metaphors” is “I’m a riddle in nine syllables,” (1) where the “nine syllables” is used to represent again the nine months of pregnancy. The poem follows the form that the first line states: every line has nine syllables again in representation of the nine months of pregnancy. The next two lines are used to demonstrate her transformation from a normal woman to a newly pregnant woman and the size that comes with it. Words that exemplify the words big and round are used to portray them in the following lines: “An elephant, a ponderous house, / A melon strolling on two tendrils” (2-3) The tone is negative as the speaker is not fond of her new look or situation she finds herself in. As she longs for the days spent in her much slimmer non-pregnant body before life became complicated. The negative tone, like the one found in “Metaphors”, was a continued theme in many of Sylvia Plath’s later poems. Paul Mitchell argued this in an article