Jilted
Jilted - meaning Summary
Sour Grief in Fruit Images
The poem expresses the speaker's bitter, wounded feelings after rejection. Plath uses a sustained sourness motif — tears like vinegar, a lemon moon, an acetic star — to convey emotional acidity and cold gossiping wind. The speaker compares her unripe, puny heart to an early summer plum, emphasizing immaturity, fragility, and arrested development. The overall tone is caustic resignation: hurt that is vivid, concentrated, and unsoftened by consolation.
Read Complete AnalysesMy thoughts are crabbed and sallow, My tears like vinegar, Or the bitter blinking yellow Of an acetic star. Tonight the caustic wind, love, Gossips late and soon, And I wear the wry-faced pucker of The sour lemon moon. While like an early summer plum, Puny, green, and tart, Droops upon its wizened stem My lean, unripened heart.
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