Cut
Cut - meaning Summary
Injury as Self-exposure
Plath’s "Cut" starts from a domestic accident—a sliced thumb—and transforms it into a fierce meditation on bodily injury, selfhood, and inner turmoil. The speaker alternates clinical observation and grotesque, militaristic and ritual imagery, treating the wound as both spectacle and site of psychic exposure. Casual mentions of pills and dislocation of identity suggest numbness and possible self-destructive impulse. The poem compresses shock, dark humor, and disquiet into a stark, visceral moment.
Read Complete AnalysesWhat a thrill - My thumb instead of an onion. The top quite gone Except for a sort of hinge Of skin, A flap like a hat, Dead white. Then that red plush. Little pilgrim, The Indian's axed your scalp. Your turkey wattle Carpet rolls Straight from the heart. I step on it, Clutching my bottle Of pink fizz. A celebration, this is. Out of a gap A million soldiers run, Redcoats, every one. Whose side are they one? O my Homunculus, I am ill. I have taken a pill to kill The thin Papery feeling. Saboteur, Kamikaze man - The stain on your Gauze Ku Klux Klan Babushka Darkens and tarnishes and when The balled Pulp of your heart Confronts its small Mill of silence How you jump - Trepanned veteran, Dirty girl, Thumb stump.
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