A Creative Writing Based on one of Sylvia Plath’s poem
A short story, about Sylvia Plath. Its a creative piece of writing, so it can be about how shes obsessed with writing poems, as its a way of her expressing her self, it should be based on one of her poems. So for instance it can be based on her poem "Balloons". The Theme of this poem is "Difficulty of Motherhood", so the story can be about Sylvia Plath having difficulties raising her kids. to help you understand the poem i’ve written a commentary on the poem its self, so feel free to use whatever you want from the commentary in order to help you write the story. Keep in mind that its a short story 800-1000 words long, based on Sylvia Plath, its a creative piece of writing it should not be a commentary but a story be creative! No sources please
"The poem "Balloons" (1963) by Sylvia Plath was written in the same year that Plath committed suicide. The poem, like many of Plath’s late works, is an example of confessional poetry. Confessional poetry is a type of poetry that uses events from the poet’s life to express commentary about psychological, emotional, and sociological themes. In the case of the poem "Balloons," Plath uses the scene of watching her young children play with Christmas balloons in a post-Christmas atmosphere. Plath is widely considered by critics to be one of the most important confessional poets and also to be one of the originators of the movement. She died at the age of thirty and her poetic reputation has only grown since her death. The following discussion of "Balloons" will show that the poem’s theme is the difficulty of motherhood. The poem is about the challenges of being a mother and the tragic consequences that lie beneath the surface of a seemingly docile domestic world.
In approaching the theme of motherhood, Plath uses several devices adn techniques to create the sense of a brooding tension that lies under the nearly-banal surface of the scene that is described in the poem. The opening lines of the poem establish this dynamic immediately. Plath opens the poem with the lines: "Since Christmas they have lived with us, / Guileless and clear, /
Oval soul-animals," (Plath, 1-3). The placid exterior of the scene is evoked through the words "Christmas," "Guileless," and "Clear." These words hold positive associations and are meant to lead the reader toward a sense of familial love and innocence. However, the introduction of figurative language in the phrase "Oval soul animals" (Plath, 3) disturbs this sense of contentment. The idea that balloons have souls and that they are also "animals" is unexpected and introduces a feeling of potential danger and also of unwanted invasion. This sense is reinforced further by lines which build on the animal theme. The lines "Giving a shriek and pop /When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling. / Yellow cathead, blue fish" (Plath, 6-8) express the feeling of predation. Obviously, Plath is constructing imagery and metaphor that are built around the idea of biological reproduction and pregnancy.
Plath develops her theme of the difficulty of motherhood through the use repetition in the poem. Just as the opening of the poem metaphorically called the balloons "animals," the developing lines identified them as fish. The idea of the balloons as animals appears again in the lines "Peacocks blessing / Old ground with a feather / Beaten in starry metals." (Plath, 17-19). The idea of the balloons being animals is the key metaphoric association that ties the entire poem together. Another aspect of repetition is Plath’s use of color. The exact repetition of color is as follows: "clear" in line 2, "yellow" in line 9, "white walls" in line 12, "red, green" in line 14, "starry metals" in line 19, "pink" in line 24, "black" in line 27, "clear" in line 28, and "red" in line 29. The progression of colors in the poem also connects to the "peaccock" that is mentioned in line 17. The colors create a logic of their own and trace the idea of the difficulty of motherhood by moving from "clear" in line 2 to "red" in the poem’s closing line. The idea of danger (and blood) is expressed by the color red which follows an act of predation by the little boy who pops a red balloon with his hand.
Along with the use of repetition, Plath develops a logical progression of imagery to express the theme of the difficulty of motherhood. For example, the image of balloons evokes, obviously, the idea of being pregnant. Simultaneously, the balloons are envisioned as animals. These shows that the biological process of birth is also attached to the processes of predation adn death. However, there is an even more significant connotation offered by the imagery of the poem; one which is subtle and somewhat difficult to analyze. This aspect is the spiritual or metaphysical theme that is expressed through the poem’s imagery. The first way this theme is expressed is through the direct comparison of the balloons to "souls" in the 2nd line. The second way that the imagery of the poem expresses spiritual or metaphysical ideas is the way the Path uses the imagery of birds. In lines 5-6, 9, and 17-18, Plath uses a direct comparison of the balloons to birds. The third way that Plath’s imagery suggests spirituality and metaphysics is in lines 10-13. Here she compares the "queer moons" (Plath, 10) of the balloons to the "…dead furniture / Straw mats, white walls" (Plath 11,12) of the ordinary world.
Plath’s poem "Balloons" expresses the idea that the difficulty of being a mother is also a spiritual or metaphysical obligation; because mother hood is connected to the deepest mysteries of life and death. Along with biological responsibility adn domestic responsibility, there is a sense that being a mother is a spiritual test. There is also the sense that life and death, though always close and present, remain mysterious and potentially dangerous. These ideas are expressed through Plath’s use of figurative language, imagery, and repetition in the poem. "
