Magi
Magi - meaning Summary
Motherhood Vs. Abstract Ideals
Plath contrasts cold, abstract ideals with the messy, embodied reality of an infant. The poem caricatures purity as papery, 'angelic' figures who value theory and moral cleanliness over the tactile, loving work of motherhood. The baby’s simple needs and physical presence expose the emptiness of those detached ideals, and the speaker questions whether a girl can thrive under such austere, intellectualized expectations.
Read Complete AnalysesThe abstracts hover like dull angels: Nothing so vulgar as a nose or an eye Bossing the ethereal blanks of their face-ovals. Their whiteness bears no relation to laundry, Snow, chalk or suchlike. They're The real thing, all right: the Good, the True . . . Salutary and pure as boiled water, Loveless as the multiplication table. While the child smiles into thin air. Six months in the world, and she is able To rock on all fours like a padded hammock. For her, the heavy notion of Evil Attending her cost less than a bellyache, And Love the mother of milk, no theory. They mistake their star, these papery godfolk. They want the crib of some lamp-headed Plato. Let them astound his heart with their merit. What girl ever flourished in such company?
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