Kindness
Kindness - context Summary
Published Posthumously in Ariel
Written during the period of Plath's late work and published posthumously in 1965 within Ariel, "Kindness" presents a domestic figure who offers consolation amid pain. The poem frames kindness as both healing and ambiguous—sugared remedies, gentle ministrations and the handing over of children and roses—that sits alongside persistent, violent imagery. Its context in Plath's final years links the poem to recurring tensions between despair and the desire for nurturing relief.
Read Complete AnalysesKindness glides about my house. Dame Kindness, she is so nice! The blue and red jewels of her rings smoke In the windows, the mirrors Are filling with smiles. What is so real as the cry of a child? A rabbit's cry may be wilder But it has no soul. Sugar can cure everything, so Kindness says. Sugar is a necessary fluid, Its crystals a little poultice. O kindness, kindness Sweetly picking up pieces! My Japanese silks, desperate butterflies, May be pinned any minute, anesthetized. And here you come, with a cup of tea Wreathed in steam. The blood jet is poetry, There is no stopping it. You hand me two children, two roses.
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