Sylvia Plath

Metaphors

Metaphors - meaning Summary

Pregnancy as Central Metaphor

This short poem strings together nine compact metaphors that describe the speaker's experience of pregnancy: physical enlargement, growing life, altered identity, and an irreversible journey. Images range from an "elephant" and "melon" to a "cow in calf" and a train with no exit, mixing wonder, discomfort, fertility, and entrapment to convey simultaneous creation and loss of autonomy.

Read Complete Analyses

I'm a riddle in nine syllables, An elephant, a ponderous house, A melon strolling on two tendrils. O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers! This loaf's big with its yeasty rising. Money's new-minted in this fat purse. I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf. I've eaten a bag of green apples, Boarded the train there's no getting off.

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