Plath Homework
FIRST - do some research about SYLVIA - these are just some interesting ones I came across. Feel free to Google away...but search for credible sources please.
- Poets.org
- A celebration, this is
- Neurotic Poets
- The Willing Domesticity of Sylvia Plath: A Rebuttal of the "Feminist" Label (this one's for all the haters out there...)
- OK, I just found this one and I had to add it...even though it's just this girl's blog...but you HAVE to check out this family's bog converstation about Plath!!! Can you believe it?http://www.sheilaomalley.com/archives/008904.html
SECOND - choose a topic and write a blurb: (sure you can answer both!)
1) How does this information change or reinforce the discussion you had about any of the poems we read today in class? Please be specific...that means referencing lines/words from the poem and also facts from the research you just did.
2) Whose poetry is more universal: Margaret Atwood or Sylvia Plath? Please be specific...that means referencing lines/words from poems and also facts from the research you just did.
posted by Mrzhire at
2:58 PM
61 Comments:
1) I think that the biographical information I learned about Sylvia reinforces what we talked about in our groups. In the poem Kindness, she says "the blood jet is poetry,/ there is no stopping it./ You hand me two children, two roses." I was in a few groups and we interpreted the "blood jet" as a bunch of different things: pregnancy perhaps, maybe slitting your wrists... But just like there was no stopping her poetry (she wrote up until a week before her death...sometimes a poem a day), there was no stopping (depending on the interpretation) her want for children or her reversion back to thoughts of suicide. It's interesting that she compares her children (Frieda and Nicholas) to roses because roses are sweet, beautiful, symbols of love...but also thorny, dangerous. A rose isn't the most childlike flower I can think of. (A daisy is) She wrote this poem when she was basically living by herself. Ted had moved out almost completely and she was dealing with the children, depression, their breakup, etc... So I'm wondering if the "you" in the poem is TED ...or maybe husbands in general. What do you think?
2) Based on the research I did about Sylvia and from the conversations we've had about Atwood's poetry...and since I HAVE to make a decision but could argue BOTH ways...I think that Atwood's poetry is more universal. Let's take Variations on the Word Sleep for example. In the 2nd stanza she describes like a nightmare or some sort of weird dream...but it's a dream that everyone may have experienced "where you must descend,/towards your worst fear". I think almost all humans, by our nature, long to be connected (romantically or not) with others. The poem contains universal images (such as a staircase and a boat) that offer up many different connotations/interpretations for the reader. Plath on the other hand uses more specific images and references to her life (which is a somewhat extreme/at least not mainstream situation). In the poem A Secret, she mentions "an illegitimate baby" and a "dwarf baby" and I just feel like it's directed towards someone/thing specific. I think the poem makes more "sense" when looking at it from an autobiographical perspective...I learned that she HAS experienced the loss of a child and symptoms of postpartum depression.
(I could argue the other way if I was talking about a poem like Mirror or The Applicant...but I might have to say that the verisimilitude would apply to a smaller audience than Atwood)
side note: what do you think of the dialogue or quotations in this poem?
1. The information I found on Plath reinforces the discussion that I had in class with my group members. I believe that the very last poem "Kindness" really showed her motherly side for both Frieda and Nicholas yet it also shows her depression. "And here you come, with a cup of tea." I actually thought that was interesting because it was similar to Orwell's "A Nice Cup of Tea" essay. I think that Plath also uses the tea to represent the bitterness that is always there inside even if one tries to put sugar in. "Sugar can cure everything, so Kindness says." I think that that shows sarcasm because she doesn't really believe so because Kindness said it not her. She goes on to say that "Sugar is a necessary fluid" which also shows sarcasm because sugar is more of a grainy substance not liquid like. The last line "You hand me two children, two roses" shows Plath's extreme depression as well as the responsibility she feels. She has two children which must be cared for and she compares them to two roses which don't last forever. Roses can wilt and die off it not cared for but I feel that Plath doesn't want that responsibility anymore because she uses the verb "hand" to show a sense of detachment from them. It isn't really important to her compared to other issues she's going through. I also think that Plath's "Mirror" poem also shows depression. I think that maybe the poem is about her father and how he didn't take the time to see a doctor to care for his diabetes. "In me she has drowned a young girl." Maybe Plath is expressing her anger of having lost her father espeically when she felt that he commited suicide when he could have prevented it. It almost seems like she believes that he doesn't love her enough to continue on with life which I suppose ruined childhood for Plath. Or maybe this poem is more about Plath reflecting back on her childhood and all of the bad experiences. Either way, I think it is an attack on her father and a blame on him for changing her life in a bad way.
1)The poems we read in class were very dark and confusing and they had a lot of literary terms to pick out and talk about. The website “A Celebration This Is” says, “She was working hard on syllabics, paying close attention on line lengths, stanza lengths and a myriad of other poetic do's and don'ts that any apprentice should know.” This is obvious in her poetry as every poem has a specified number of lines in a stanza. The poem “Mirror” even has two stanzas that are mirror images of each other. The confusing nature of her poems can be contributed to the “conflicting emotions of love, hate, anger and grief at the loss of her father.” More can be read on the “Neurotic Poets” website. The research definitely helped me understand Plath’s poetry a little bit better.
Good call Sara, Ted Hughes had her doing exercises in writing...to help her try and improve her poetry. Hmmmmmm.
1.) I found that the information on Plath reinforced what we discussed in class. Many of her poems show depression (duh) but they also can show life and motherly feelings... True of the ones we read they were all depressing, but she references kids a lot. For example, in the "Kindness", it says "You hand me two children, two roses." The connotation of roses is usually a good thing, somewhat romantic, and my interpretation of it was that the children were like the roses. BUT given that this poem was written just days before Plath killed herself, I believe this is an attack on Hughes for leaving her and her kids. ie. "YOU hand me two children..." so it is depressing too. So, just with this, the information learned, that her father died when she was young and that her husband left her adds to her depressiveness and reinforces what we talked about.
P.S. I just had a thought as I was going over her poems again, of the ones that I have read completely, they all seem to talk about all parts of life. Babies, teens, adults, elderly... it's all there, and things associated with these age groups. Does this mean anything? perhaps?
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1) Based on the biographical information I read on Sylvia Plath I think it reinforces her father/daughter relationship in the poem A Secret. "I have one eye/you have two" which gives me the impression that she is all seeing/knowing while her father may be all the more wiser in age, yet his knowledge doesn't help him from staving off diabetes. This idea is reinforced when she says,"One a fool/The other a fool," which I take as being her father was a greater fool because he didn't seek medical advice and dismissed his illness as cancer (so far that a friend at his funeral commented,"How could such a brilliant man have been so stupid?")and she was a fool for believing in God when she dismisses him after her father dies. "An illegitimate baby...do away with the bastard," is like Sylvia who is fatherless at age 8. In her poem Daddy she says,"You died before I had time..." My mom and I interpreted this as anger at her father leaving her and that perhaps she didn't really want him dead but she said so because she was angry. I don't think A Secret was written about her father or that the policeman or "you" is him, but I sense an underlying tone of the father/daughter relationship. Maybe "the stampede" was the personification of all of the emotions and feelings she felt when her father passed and she recollected them later on. I'm not really certain...
2) As to the poet that is more Universal this is a difficult question. Through experience I had heard of Sylvia Plath but never Margaret Atwood. Plath was the first poet to receive a Pulitzer Prize after death, however Atwood is still living and producing poems. Hmmm...I think I'm going to go with Plath. While Atwood is able to write poetry on topics that the average person can discern with easily like A Sad Child or The Moment, Plath's poems seem more personal. Her writing is influenced a lot by her life and her experiences but I think that is what makes her writing genuine. She isn't detached but rather aware whether it be candles that she is observing in the poem Candles or the jungle like nature in the poem A Secret, she is constantly analyzing without stop. She is in a sense blunt without having to use fluff, and in her bluntness provides a lens for the other half of the non-bubbly non-charismatic bunch.
1. Based on Plath's various biographies I've read the discussions we had in class on her poems have only been reinforced. The personal issues that are hinted at in Plath's poems such as her conflicts with her mother may be seen in Kindness. As we know that her mother visited Plath, despite what Plath may have wished for. The disdain she shows towards "kindness" in regards to the "sugar" reflects the feelings Plath had for her mother. Referring to her mother as "Kindness" also shows us the conflict Plath was in between fighting her mothers wishes and her own. "The blood jet is poetry,There is no stopping it." Her life is poetry, not exactly what her mother wished for in a daughter. The conflict of identity, struggling with what she thinks she should be and who she is, is also seen in the last line of Kindness "You hand me two children, two roses." Roses are both beautiful, and have stinging thorns. Essentially, the struggle seen in Plath's poetry is substantiated (good word by the way) by the events and conflicts in her life; her mother, husband, schooling, and children.
1). Plath didn't exactly leave what we would call a happy life. Her father died when she was at a very young age, she attempted suicide in college, her entire life in fact was plagued by multiple attempts at suicide. Obviously, all this depression in her life manifested itself within her poetry. We felt it somewhat eerie how close "Kindness" was written to the day of her suicide. Looking at that poem, it seems to me to be, despite its name, the one most affected by her depression. As Mrs. Hire said, she was dealing with all sorts of family issues, and it became too much for her less than a week after she wrote "Kindness." I believe the "you" in the poem is referring to Ted. The "blood jet" I do believe is a result of slitting her wrists, as Ted ensured that there was no stopping her thoughts from reverting back to the depression and suicidal thoughts that had plagued much of her adult life. I think she used roses as metaphors for her children because, although a rose can seem beautiful at first, when you go to pick it up you cut yourself. Much in the same way, Plath probably went from having a family that seemed like a beautiful thing in her life to one that cut her when she got close (Ted's whole affair with Assia Wevill).
2. Both writers have their own appeal; Plath with her dark outlook on life, and Atwood with her self examinations. I'm going to have to say that Atwood is a more universal author (although I prefer Plath personally). Atwood explores a rang of emotions that can be applied to a much broader audience than Plath. Plath's focus on the dark side of life, such as in Paralytic and Mirror, somewhat limits the universality of her work, that is not to say that that is exactly the reason I enjoy her work but that it highlights only a small portion of life. I feel that Atwood explores broader topics than Plath, considering their implications as well as in A Secular Night and The Rest. If it were a popularity contest I'd vote Plath no questions asked, but the question being who is more "universal" I'm going to have to side with Atwood.
1) Before the research on Plath, I definately thought she had issues. After the research on Plath, I pretty much KNOW she had issues... She had a screwy life, and from what I read on the Neurotic Poets page she had some major identity issues too. Her whole personality, the perfectionist and inadequate feelings that contributed to her depression come through in her writing. The poetry and the information work hand in hand for me now. The poem Paralytic makes even more sense now, her self image of worthlessness and this dead attitude towards herself totally connects. The rough rhythm and the choppy structure creates the idea of a person in a hospital bed all hooked up to machines, incapable or undesiring of living by themself. Also those who love him, ie. the wife an daughters, are dead to him too. Theres imagery of them being flat, and its all such negative diction... Pretty much the information reinforces how wacko she was and how it was no wonder she couldn't kill herself sooner. Just kidding... But seriously.
1) Oh jeez, i think that staunch feminist image i was hearing in was pretty badly refuted by her whole little therapeutic sex thing eh? However, some of that stuff further reinforces the motif of emptiness, as in 'Kindness': "A rabbit's cry may be wilder / but it has no soul." As said in the neurotic poets article "[The rape incidents] were only the beginning indications of a dark predilection Plath possessed for abusive men." Weeeeeeird. Distrubing tendencies, disturbed state of mind...ergo disturbing poems.
2) I'd say that Atwood is more mainstream........by comparison. Plath seems to be more oriented towards prodigal (and disturbed) minds and would most likely appeal to the same crew that listens to My Chemical Romance and shuns the world. Too emo: "And here you come, with a cup of tea / wreathed in steam. / The blood jet is poetry, / there is no stopping it."
Now if you examine A Photograph of Me, which I'd like to think is one of her more emo-ish poem, you'd realize that there is a much less emo possible underlying meaning (could be interpreted as a step from childhood to womanhood).
Plath rules though; def. Just...a bit creepy for mainstream. I spose her works are kinda like techno music in that sense.
-Sreyas
1.) Sylvia Plath lived within her own world of depression. She attemted to commit suicide more than once and eventually succeded. Her life though depressing, is characterized by her wealth of poetry. This poetry itself also reflects her feelings. In "Kindness", Plath explicitly uses the word anesthetized. This word has a definate negitive connotation, especially when the reader considers this poem's proximity to Plath's death. She is saying that poetry is her only outlet, and all she cares about is her children. "The blood jet is poetry, / There is no stopping it./
You hand me two children, two roses. "
I interpreted that the only thing that can hold back the the blood jet, is peotry and her children. This is very powerful.
1. It was interesting to read about her. Some of the things that I noticed were that she was summa cum laude, that her mom was a student of her dad (Ew!), and that she received the Fulbright Scholarship that she tried to kill herself once before actually succeeding. I think maybe because of her life she writes some of her poems really vaguely. Like she wants to express herself but she might not be able to or actually doesn't really want people to know. Also she seems to just add kind of depressing things to the end of not the most depressing of lines. for example in the mirror...In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish....like a terrible fish...? I realize the drowning part is kind of depressing but the rising line isn't really depressing....until she talks about a terrible fish.
#2 I find Atwood's poems to be more universal than Plath's. Most of the Plath poems we read in class are the poet's emotional outbursts. through discussion, my group concluded that Plath wrote many of her poems for herself, to express and cope with life. For example, she states in Mirror, "In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman rises toward her day after day", this is a personal cry of anguish about growing old. Atwood's poems are more universal because when i read many of them, i did not immediately jump to the conclusion that she wrote them for herself. They are personal like Plath's but not as desperate. The desperation of Plath's poetry relates to a smaller group of people than the broad audience of Atwood's poetry, for example, all women, (Helen of Troy) or all lovers (Variations on the Word Love).
1. From an outside view, it seemed like Sylvia had a perfect life. The biographies described her as being attractive and smart who did well in school and everything. Yet, she was suicidal and depressed, and I think most of this was because of her fathers death. I think this portrays some sort of identity conflict. Not only to outside people (who she seems like vs who she really is inside) but did Plath ever know herself? I think this can be shown through some of her poetry, especially in the poem "mirror" and how she is questioning her reflection.
I think that the biological informaton reinforces what we read in the poetry because knowing the author's background is essential to truly understanding the author's intent of using the specific structure and diction and devices used in the poem. A poem is a reflection of its author (haha mirror) and Sylvia's past life definetely influenced her writing and I could see this with the awful events of her childhood in corralation with her dark writing.
I also noticed that whenever something bad happened she wrote a poem after a poem after a poem...(in one of the bio sites)
Greetings,
I got my biographical of Plath from Wikipedia [all hail]. It gave several interesting trivial tidbits including the fact that Plath studied Poetry after her first suicide attempt. It was after this, that she started studying and writing poetry in Cambridge. Later on, you see that she gave birth to two children who were close to her. From this newly acquired info, I think I'll look at Plath's poetry through a different lens. Wikipedia [all hail] talks about how her poems are self-expressional, and I wonder if her poems fit into each other somehow. Perhaps they show emotional trends. The poetry reflects several themes that are also evident in Plath's life such as children, depression, secrets, and death. For example, the poem "secret" could connect with her husbands secret affair that destroyed Plath's marriage. I like how you arranged the packet chronologically, so it makes it easy to perhaps looks for trends. These poems were written before Plath committed suicide, more in tangent with her pregnancy. What's interesting is that, in her poems, death is still a very recurring theme. And, intertwined perhaps within the same poem, are themes of birth (perhaps indicating her pregnancy). For example, in "Stopped dead" she talks of "baby's" but later focuses on "knifes" (an image associate with violence and death).
Furthermore, the mere fact that we are reading what she was writing just before her death, is in itself, extremely powerful. It's like we're looking back in time. Her poetry seems to be an expression of emotion and a poem seems to be a good channel/language of emotion... It would be harder to convey such dense emotion through, say, just a narrative auto-biography in which the emotions become mere facts and almost statistical in nature.
#1) I'd have to say that after further researching Plath that it reinforces our groups idea that Plath was writing more for herself than anyone else, at least of the poems that we read. Plath had some interesting experiences, most of which wouldn't have been easy to deal with. She seemed to be, outwardly, a pleasant and relatively normal albeit brilliant person. However it seems that she struggled with depression all her life, and it only could have gotten worse as she coped with it by having sex or writing poetry. One such issue was that she was constantly being screwed over (no pun intended) by men. In her poem the applicant she seemed to describe the process of choosing who to have sex with. As she says "First, are you our sort of a person?" She's asking if this person is even worth it, but then she continues on to talk about marriage, as she was thinking with Hughes. It seems that these poems are mean more for her than for anyone else, though people can still relate to them I'm sure.
After reading the research myideas on te poem we read in class were changed quite a bit. We read the poem kindness and intepreted the two children to be Sylvia's children and that it was her on the death bed thinking that she was leaving her children with her husband. However the research i did showed that Sylvia was one of two cjildren and that maybe the poem was aimed at her father as he really did die in a hospital bed. Therefore she knew that her father was dying and he needed help and she felt that her father really thought of her and her brother as roses. I think that either view can work here but the research opened up the door for more interesting conversation.
I think that both of these poets are not quite what comes to mind when i think of universal. This is because atwood seems to be very feminist, this can be seen in her poem about Helen of Troy being a countertop dancer. This poem would never have been written by a man and shows a fairly obvious femenist perspective. Many of her poems are quite sexy and this too Counter top dacer is a good example here too yet other poems also describe "what animals do best" and other such ideas. Plath on the other hand is a depressed pyscho. This belief was only reaffirmed by the research that i did and the poems of hers i have read. If asked with who is more universal i would like to say atwood as i hope there are more feminists in the world then depressed pyschos.
Nick, you have the BEST comments, BY FAR!!!!! Thanks!
I found that in a few of the poems, some things that we mentioned were things that may have been mirrored from her life. In the first poem we read, "Candles", we seemed to come to the conclusion that the speaker was kind of talking to herself, the poem didn't seem to have a direct audience. Unlike a lot of other poems, there is no "you" in this. Now, I figure that this may just be the effect of her decision to write in a more "inward style" (around 1959 according to Neurotic Poets) and hence it is more of a self-discovery or self-analysis, than it is anything else.
In "The Applicant" I also found something similar. I looked at this poem as sort of attacking the idea of a "typical" marriage or possibly just the pressure to have the sort of marriage that she seems to describe. The most interesting part to me was "It can sew, it can cook,/It can talk, talk, talk". Although she is dehumanizing the woman here (as an object for the man), she is also doing so in a sarcastic (?) manner, which makes it look like she is just blowing off steam from the issues with her own marriage. More specifically, she may have seen the situation in this way (as she was merely the object of her husband who could whatever with her then... even return her if he wanted).
After doing research I found something different, though, in another one of the poems: "Mirror". Now, after knowing she spent time in a mental institution where she worked with a female psychiatrist, I look at this poem in a more literal way (in terms of what she's describing). For example, in the line "Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall": I previously looked at this in the way that the speaker (a mirror?) simply told things straight, just how they are, and that these were the things the speaker reflected or the things that became a part of [her], but now with the addition of a mental institution I think of someone just sitting in an empty room staring at a wall, maybe waiting for some one to come. In a way, knowing the facts kind of ruined it...
The question of whose more universal, plath or atwood, is hard to answer one way or the other. Like I mentioned with "candles", plath seems to have this internal factor to some of her poems, but in truth I think the emotions and ideas that she conveys may be more relatable to the world (marriage: "will you marry it?", mental institutions...maybe). Atwood on the other hand just seems so random and sometimes its even hard to extract what she's talking about or the emotions she may be attempting to convey. Especially in "This is a photograph of me". I mean, she says "The Photograph was taken/the day after I drowned", but where's the emotion in this statement? Nowhere?
1) The poem "A Secret" posesses a distinctly angry and accusatory tone directed at the relationship between the mother and father of an illegitimate baby. The speaker, presumably the woman, attacks the man's inability to maintain responsibility within family life, while having two faces, or eyes: "A difference between us?/ I have one eye, you have two". Also, the poem contains various animalistic metaphors, like "...the African giraffe in its Edeny greenery", "Moroccan hippopatamus", and even a "blue and huge...traffic policeman,/ Holding up one palm". These references to a "jungle" and "stampede" illustrate the chaotic reality of life and society itself, always whizzing by despite the pain and suffering of individual creatures. This overwhelmed opinion of humanity and the passionately wounded view of relationship expressed parallels Sylvia Plath's life. The poem, written after Ted Hughes left Plath for an affair with Assia, reflects the rage and desperation Plath felt after being abandoned, much like the turbulent emotions felt after the death of Sylvia's father. The jungle of society, rushing by beastially, shows Plath's dissatisfaction for the often dismal responses to her poetry, leaving her feeling worthless and alone. She also felt much apart from the rest of humanity, emphasizing her depression and anxiety. "A Secret" quite tragically portrays Plath's frustrations and miseries amidst the downward spiral of her last days.
1. After reading a more complete biography on Plath than the short summary that was given in class, her poetry seems to relate back to her life even more. This isn't just seen in her depressing tone, but also in the depressing events in her life she depicts in her poetry. An example of this is in her poem "Stopped Dead." This poem was written in October of 1962, the same year her husband divorced her, and the same year she had her second child. The first line, "A squeal of brakes" could symbolize the halt of her marriage. Then in the third stanza, the lines "We're here on a visit,/With a goddam baby screaming off somewhere./There's always a bloody baby in the air." These lines could symbolize the awkward situation between her and her husband and her new baby. Though it may seem horrible that she is calling her baby a "goddam baby" and "a bloody baby in the air," it may be an example of all the stress that the baby is adding to her divorce. This change in her life would have probably put her into another depressed state, causing her to write these poems that seem extremely depressing to us.
2. I think that Plath writes with a more universal perspective. Much of what Atwood writes about concerns artificial realities and surrealism. Those with concrete perspectives on the world around them are less able to relate to Atwood's out of body poetry and surreal images. Plath's poetry, whilst not necessarily concrete, concerns what I feel are more universal emotions and fears. In "Mirror" Plath writes of aging, which is a phenomenon confrontedc by all human beings. These emotional writings also contrast with Atwood's more starkly feminist themes. As Nick mentioned, I as a man cannot relate to "Helen of Troy..." Those of Atwood's poems that describe pregnancy I can have little relation to because pregnancy is something that I cannot experience. I can, however, experience anger and sorrow, I can experience fear, and I will age. Plath's poems are not just more relative to me, however, but relative to multiple perspectives and the greater spectrum of human beings in regards to gender differences.
After doing some research on Plath's life, her poems mean even more. I guess I knew that she had a suicide attempted then ended up committing suicide, yes I knew she was married, and had two children, and her mother was overpowering, but after seeing pictures, and reading specific situations in her life, it has even more meaning. I guess I should talk about the cases I'm talking about, right? I didn't know that her father died when she was 8, and he was super controlling (which makes me want to analyze Daddy, You Bastard, I'm Through even more), also I didn't know her mother forced her to take typing classes so she could be more 'normal'. Turns out, also, that Ted Hughes left her for another woman weeks before she committed suicide. (!!!!!). What else? He doctor actually told her to embrace her unique-ness, and she bleached her hair to be a blonde aftaer her suicide attempt. AnywayI think the poem Mirror is about her shift from an innocent lively 'poetic-prodigy' to a dissatisfied woman who "drowns me with tears of agitation" In the first stanza she is innocent "not cruel, only truthful", and "unmisted by love of dislike", then she loses herself in the waters of the lake "searching my reaches for what she really is." I don't know if this interpretation is a stretch , but that's what I saw in it, and judging what I learned about her and the loss of her youth. When she married and had children and began to worry about family rather than what makes HER happy she I feel really dirty reading her later poetry because she didn't necessarily want it to be published, and here we are delving into her most personal world relating it to issues in her private life and her ultimate suicide, it's like her suicide itself has become a public move, which, of course it wasn't, but that's how it seems now.
Once again, another overly long comment, sorry!
By the way, I answered #1, I think.
2. I think that Plath's poems are more universla than those of Atwood. One could say that Plath's poetry is simply depressed and emotional, but depression and emotion may be felt by everyone. Plath may have written her poems for herself, but this makes them more human. They speak to those who are lonely and isolated as they are private thoughts. Plath's situation was unique (I don't know if Atwood had anything like Plath's domestic life), but her poems are universal. This emotive depression is evident throughout most of Plath's poetry, such as her imagery in "A Secret" regarding the baby. Plath's powerful emotions are more universal to me than Atwood's different realities.
I agree with Nick when he says that bth poets aren't really universal. They both have experienced certain things such as children, marriage, and darker things such as death. They've also experienced different things. Plath is very universal to people who have been in a bad marriage, lost a father slightly mysteriously, had a miscarriage, and struggled with depression. However, for someone like me who hasn't been married or had kids, her poetry doesn't "speak to me". Atwoods' poetry deals with marriage and such, but she seems to desguise it in ideas that are more general, like the difference between percieved and actual reality. Her poetry is not decidedly feminist to me, but rather aims at pointing out problems in perception of people in general, such as in "Sirens Song" and "Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing". Because of her more general overall motifs of reality, and humanity in general make Atwoods a more universal poet.
That above comment from "Rachel 7" is actually from me, Rachel Meine.
I think reading about Sylvia Plath definitely confirms what we discuss in class. Her poetry was a journal; like one of the sites said, she visited the doctor and then wrote a poem about it. It wasn't really a recreational thing but more of a diary. Her poetry can be tracked to events in her life, like her husband and children. Insomniac was written when she couldnt sleep or write for that November and December. But I think in this way, it also makes it less universal than Atwood. Atwood's poetry could be speaking to/at anyone, but Plath's poetry definitely has a direct person she's talking to, whether that's her children, husband, doctor, or herself. Like in "A Secret" in class we discussed that she's definitely talking to her husband and/or her child when she addresses "you". "You stumble out/Dwarf baby...The knife in your back". Plath was mentally unstable (hence her suicide) so I really doubt she could be concerning herself with others and appealing to everyone when she was feeling low about herself, which I'm inferring from her depression and suicide...When we are content with ourselves we can looks outwards to others, but Plath was depressed so she looked within and even used her diary as a release, yet it wasn't really because it was still within her own realm of herself...If that makes sense...
2) I tend to consider Atwood as more of a Universal poet. Although Plath addresses aspects of the darker side of life that nobody sees but everyone knows, for example how the Mirror gives a terribly negative impression of reflections of a woman, she does not show both the positive and negative pieces of and aspect like Atwood does. Atwood's change in tone, especially in poems such as You Fit into Me, shows the negatives and positives of aspects and as such creates paradoxes that show how the universal picture illuminates truth. "To annihilate the world by annihilation of one's self is the deluded height of desperate egoism. The simple way out of all the little brick dead ends we scratch our nails against.... I want to kill myself, to escape from responsibility, to crawl back abjectly into the womb." This quote from the Neurotic Poets page, although depressingly profound, does not show the universiality of life and more shows a one sided opinion that is difficult to relate to in terms of experience. Atwood's poetry opposes this as in Helen of Troy does Countertop Dancing contains many different perceptions (such as in the animal-to-man metaphor and elaborate synaesthesia such as "the music smells like foxes" showing the possiblility that the You is men in general or their power hungry wives). These perceptions provide a multidimensional and universal aspect that Plath does not seem to emulate.
I would have to agree with Rachel on the point that neither Atwood or Plath are universal. Like we discussed in class, Plath's work is more like a diary and logs things and events that happens in her life. It is far more personal and reflective than a poem that talks to the audience. I find that Atwood's work does seem to reference more open-minded ideas such as in "Postcards" she appears to be talking about democracy in an extremely round-about way, but because that was difficult to point out and make a case for, the poem looses it's sense of universalness and becomes far more personal. Besides that, like any author I have read, they write what they know and therefore can only speak to a certain demographic which makes the idea that either Atwood's or Plath's poems universal obsolete.
It seems that the “biographical” information I found on Sylvia Plath reinforces some of the concepts that we discussed in our groups. I say “biographical” because the most striking biographical reference I found came in the form of “Candy Cotton Kid and the Faustian Wolf” by Sandra Lester, in which the author speculates that much of Sylvia Plath’s poetry and life was influenced by the sexual abuse of her Uncle Frank (though many sources I found strongly disagreed with Lester’s speculations and, in fact, suggest that Plath had a very loving relationship with her Uncle Frank). Our group thought that the poem “Stopped Dead” showed a wish for the death of the narrator’s uncle. We interpreted the passage “Red and yellow, two passionate hot metals / Writhing and sighing, what sort of scenery is it?” as the narrator gazing into the fire and imagining fantasies. Following these lines, “It’s violent. We’re here on a visit, / With a goddam baby screaming off somewhere” appeared, and we interpreted that with the violent death of the narrator’s uncle in the fantasy, a new “birth” would occur with the money inherited (due to the fact that the uncle was a “millionaire”). In this way, the biographical information found in Lester’s “Candy Cotton Kid and the Faustian Wolf” supports such a hateful attitude of the narrator of this poem (which, based on this information, one would assume to be Sylvia Plath) toward her uncle. However, if this biographical information is indeed found to be false, then our ideas would be almost entirely refuted.
1. I think it's interesting how Sylvia's father passed away when she was so young. At 8 years old, you're old enough to remember it, but just young enough to not fully understand the concept of death. I think that this affected Sylvia a lot because as she grew up, her idea of a family and relationships were skewed. (Not to mention her crazy whack-o poems about her relationship with her husband...weiiiird). I looked up the poem "Daddy" which she wrote about her father, and it was totally crazy. She seemed really bitter about his death. The last line says "Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through." Pretty harsh.
I think it's way cool too how Sylvia started writing a lot of poetry when she was in high school. It's cool because you know that she is doing it because she loves it, not only for the money that comes from publishing poems. I think she also does it in order to express her feelings, which she definetely needs because of her crazy depression slums.
1) After reading the poems in class i got the impression that all of Plath's poems were depressing and she was just insane! I knew she had a hard life and such, but i thought sometimes authors tend to write about a fantasy world, like the happy moments they do have in life, so i couldn't figure out why everything she wrote was so depressing. Then I read about how she kept a personal journal, where she was so honest even blunt. She even goes so far as to have written about "enjoying picking her nose" this is what made me realize Plath just wrote things how she saw them... Naturally, she had something completely wrong in never thinking she was good enough a perfectionist, getting so depressed after not getting into harvard... etc.. Plath doesnt sugar coat life! She is more negative then what i really like to see but maybe she tells it straight up?
2) As for who is more universal Atwood or Plath? I am not really sure...Both of their poems have universal underlying themes... where it is depression, excitement, anger, or joy everyone has felt these feelings. I do think that Atwood appeals to more people because who wants to be bogged down with depressing poems!? Everyone has hardships, we turn to poems and writing to brighten our days! Plath however tells it how it is... maybe what she is writing about is universal.. but i dont think it appeals universally??
2) From reading both Plath and Atwood and researching their lives and events that influenced their writing, I find that Plath is the more universal of the two. When first looking at her poems, they are quite depressing and filled with disturbing imagery. With this depressing and disturbing imagery,she inclues other feelings and sense that are expressed by the undertones int he poems such as slight undertones of happiness and joy as they are masked by spiritual and hopeful metaphors. This is seen in Candles, with the line "grown milky, almost clear, like the bodies of saints." The use of the word "clear" takes us away from the normally misty and depressing poetry that we know from Plath, and for a moment takes us to literaly a clear and almost hopeful place when reading the poetry. She is more universal because she touches on all human emotions, evne though most of her poems are about pain and suffering.
2. I think that Atwood is more universal than Plath. I agree with what Anna said with regards to how everyone sees the darker side of life that Plath portrays, they just don't want to admit it. On the other hand I don't think that the deep depression portrayed in all the Plath poems that I've read so far is universal at all. Just because people see the negative side of life doesn't necessarily mean they're depressed. The fact that Atwood talks about a variety of topics in her poems makes it more universal because many people experience a variety of feelings, not just the negative.
I also agree with Mrs. Hire in that Sylvia Plath's examples are more specific. For instance in "Daddy," Sylvia is talking directly to her father and about her own insecurities about him, for instance that he was like a Nazi and she was like a Jew. Most people, while being depressed, don't feel that way about their father. Also I learned in my research that Ted Hughes left her not long after her second baby was born, and I was wondering if that could be part of the "Secret." In that poem, towards the end, she says, "You stumble out,/ dwarf baby,/ the knife in your back./ 'I feel weak.'/ The secret is out." I think the dwarf baby is her because she was innocent like a baby in loving him, and the knife was his breakup with her because it was like a betrayal and led to her depression again. Atwood's poems are more inherent to society, like how "Bored" could apply to so many different situations. I don't really think that either poet should be described as universal, because both are rather disturbing, but I think that Atwood comes closer than Plath.
1.) I really didn't like Plath in the beginning and she was the poet that I didn't want to do because I thought that there was no way I would be able to relate to her poetry at all. After reading her biography and one additional poem my thoughts about the poem "The Applicant" is both reinforced as well as challenged. I read a poem that was referenced in "A Celebration this is" called "Lesbos." This poem caught my attention because when I read "The Applicant" I got the distanct feeling that the speaker was a gay man. The poem "Lesbos" refutes this idea because that poem seems to be about the relationship that Plath has with Hughes and Hughes veiw upon women. So I believe that the title is referencing the love with Plath has for her daughter, but on the other hand she titled this poem the way she did for a reason that the last stanza "I see your cute decor
Close on you like the fist of a baby
Or an anemone, that sea
Sweetheart, that kleptomaniac.
I am still raw.
I say I may be back.
You know what lies are for."
supports the idea that Plath was wanting to get revenge upon Hughes for cheating on her and that she has lost faith in men due to him. With the background information I don't believe that Plath hates men, but rather that she hates Hughes...for good reason. This made me question the speaker of "The Applicant" once again. Perhaps the speaker is a woman in a marriage that is in love with another woman, or at least the idea of a woman rather than the men that hurt her for so long. I truly love the fact that the peom "Lesbos" could influence my ideas about another poem so much. I really love the poem "Lesbos" and I think that you should make the class read it...maybe if you have the read it without knowing the title they won't be biased or against reading it...it is by far my favorite work of Plath.
I found "a secret" facinating after reading about Plath. i noticed that the poem was written about two weeks after her divorce. her reflection on Hughes affair within the poem speaks to me. it's almost as if she is interrogating Hughes. I also notice a sense of regret, talking about the "illegitimate baby" and wanting to "do away with the bastard" child.
she also uses British terms i.e. pet and cloves. i was unaware of her living quarters before reading the information.
Poor Sylvia. she cries out to me, "I feel weak." she had a knife in her back that i was unaware of. but now "the secret is out."
1) Wow, I know we were told that Plath had a depressing life, but I didn’t know she was that depressed and had so many bad things happen to her, until I read some research talking about her. I am not going to lie, now that I know a lot more about her life, I actually have a lot more respect for her poetry and seem to like it a lot more, because so many of them are influenced by her own experiences, which I think is really cool. Her life really ties in well with her poetry, from what I saw. When my group and I were discussing the poem, “Candles”, we saw it as a progression of someone growing up or a life to death progression. It was really hard to find a single meaning seeing that so much goes on in this particular poem. The year it was written was the same year Plath gave birth to Freida. When Plath mentions “ balloon flights and the steroptiocon,” both childish things and then at the end of the poem stating “ To this infant sill in a birth-drowse?”, I am just reminded of some type of new coming and birth even though it contains some dark imagery it still seems to gear towards the beginning of life even with the last word, “christening.” When looking at Insomniac, I found research about how she went through a stage where she didn’t sleep, read or write. Even though the speaker is talking of a man, I really think it is Plath who is the “him.” The first stanza talks about “sleeplessness” and then the second stanza reminds me of Plath’s attempt at suicide with sleeping pills when the poem states, “ he is immune to pills” and “ in no- life for a while.” The idea that Plath didn’t die from her overdose of sleeping pills emphasizes being “immune to pills” and “ no-life for awhile,” suggests how she went unconscious we she attempted suicide( like at the brink of death=no-life for awhile). When looking at the poem Stopped Dead, the “ Uncle” character may indeed be reference to her father’s death, especially seeing how traumatizing that event was to her and how random the poem is, almost showing her confusion and almost insanity that reached her after her father died. “ I’ll carry it off like a rich pretty girl,” is interesting because I think that the “I’ is Plath, seeing that she came from a wealthy family and was pretty. It is as if she is suggesting that she needs to just get over the trauma of the situation and wants to when she says “ and live in Gibraltar on air, on air,” almost wanting to escape her troubles. I am sure a lot of the poems also emphasize her ended marriage with Ted Hughes, because she went into deep depression after he left. An example of this is in “ Kindness.” I see Plath being very bitter in this poem and sarcastic. The last line really made me think that it was about Ted Hughes(like what you said Mrs. Hire) leaving her, because she says “ You hand me two children, two roses,” which could be referring to the two children they had Freida and Nick, as being the only two good things that he gave her, because roses are beautiful but at the same time they do have spines. So is Plath happy bout the kids?? Well anyway I should stop writing because this is too long! I am glad that I actually read about her background info, because it really explains the dark imagery and creepiness of her poetry. Now I actually enjoy it a lot more, because at the beginning of this I really didn’t like her at all, but kudos to Plath, she really is something else.
While talking about the poem Kindness, we discussed how Kindness represented the ideal housewife and mother, almost in a commercial sense, and somewhat reminding me of the Stepford Wives. However, Plath ends the poem with the lines: "the blood jet is poetry,/ there is no stopping it./ You hand me two children, two roses." These lines introduce the clash between the ideal of the housewife and who Plath really is. The blood jet is a curious subject, however. We talked about how it could be pregnancy, but i also think that it may be referencing her miscarriage (Celebration). This is the reality of her situation. She is going to have a child, but it is stolen from her at the last possible moment. In that sense, it is a very poetic situation. "There is no stopping it" portrayed a sense of predestination to me, as though Plath was never meant to have that child. In the final line, "you hand me two children, two roses" Plath sounds like she's being very sweet and thankful. However, she does not have a bouquet of roses, she just has the two, a very real statement as in the ideal, she would have an enormous assortment of roses in a bouquet. Her reality is more poetic, in this sense, then the stupid ideal laid down by society.
2. I definitely think that people are able to relate to the works of both poets, since both have poems with themes that apply to many different individuals. That said, however, I think certain people can better relate to one or the other just based on personal experiences or preferences. If I had to pick one as being more universal, I think I would pick Margaret Atwood. This is because her poems leave a lot up to the imagination. She refuses to explain the meaning behind all of her poems, which allows anyone to interpret it in a way which relates to them. Although I think Plath's writing can also be very ambiguous in the same way as Atwood's, I think there are definite connections that can be seen between her own life and the poetry she writes... especially in poems like "The Applicant", where she writes about the problems in her marriage (To bring teacups and roll away headaches/And do whatever you tell it. Will you marry it?) or in a poem like Candles where she discusses motherhood, as it was written when she was pregnant with her first child. While these connections between her poetry and her own life definitely aren't a bad thing, I do think they somewhat take away from the universiality because it ataches a certain connotation to the poem and in some cases might act as a block that prevents the reader from creating their own interpretation. It's like what Alex said about how knowing the facts kind of ruins it. Although I'm sure Atwood did write based off of her own experiences, what these catalysts were is unclear to anyone but her and this along with her refusal to explain her poems allows the reader to make their own interpretations, making her poems more universal than Plath's (although I know many people can still have individual interpretations of Plath's poems as well).
1) The biographical information about Plath was certainly helpful in understanding her work. Previously, when I read poems such as "Burning the Letters", I had no idea what was going on. It seems as though this poem had a very clear connection to the events going on in her life at the time, and because of this, though it can be open to interpretation, it is useful to know that she wrote it right after she discovered her husband's affair and burned all of his letters. She writes, “I made a fire; being tired/Of the/white fists of old/Letters and their death rattle/When I came too close to the wastebasket./What did they know that I didn't?”. When she asks, “What did they know that I didn’t?” it makes me think of what her husband knew that he was not telling her. Later in her life, he told her that he never loved her and did not want to live with her or have children, but she never knew this. Maybe if she had, she would not have been so depressed and would have left him early on. Again, in “A Secret”, she refers to “A difference between us...An illegitimate baby…” Perhaps the “illegitimate baby” is an accusation to her husband, who having children, runs to another woman and possibly harms Sylvia but also her kids by giving them an unwanted sibling. Overall, I felt like this research helped me understand her life, and her poems seemed much more personal once I saw the relationship to her life. I also thought it was ironic that her husband’s mistress and the “illegitimate baby” died in the same way as Plath.
One thing that I found interesting in the biographical information was that Plath's poem "The Applicant" was written around the same time that Sylvia and Ted were having problems with their marriage. According to s biography from one of the websites, a month before she wrote "The Applicant" she and Ted became legally separated. She might have written this poem because of their problems. One of the ideas we discussed in class after reading the poem was the idea that marriage is no longer for love. In the poem Plath says, "Open your hand/ Empty? Empty. Here is a hand." These lines especially the last one make marriage seem like an obligation rather than a real desire. It is forced upon someone. It doesn't matter who you marry as long as you marry someone. I found it surprising that Sylvia and Ted's marriage was the opposite. It seems as though they loved each other at the time they got married. They might have gotten married just to get married. Possibly, Plath is describing what she felt Ted had done or what she now thinks about marriages, that women have to be "A living doll everywhere you look." After her experiences or possibly from anger, she probably thinks that men need to have the perfect "doll" as a wife.
1.What I've read on Plath lads me to believe that her life reinforces my ideas from class discussions about her poetry. We see her depression in lines such as "My Japanese silks, desperate butterflies, May be pinned any minute, anesthetized." from Kindness. She seems so hopeless and forlorn in these lines and indeed the poem, and given its proximity to her death, I believe it is a pure representation of the essence of the feelings that permeated her life.
2) The biographical information about Sylvia Plath reinforces some of the personal references in her poetry. What I thought was most interesting was the connection that Plath had with death in nearly all parts of her life: her father died when she was young, she attempted suicide, had a miscarriage and finally succeeded in killing herself. It seems to me that many of her poems are very dark, perhaps because of this. One line that particularly "spoke to me" was "When one stark skeleton
Bulks real, all saints' tongues fall quiet," from "November Graveyard. Her relationship with Ted Hughes also affected her poetry very visibly. The poem "Burning the Letters" was composed during a turbulent time with Ted and likely alludes to when she burnt all of his letters.
2) The biographical information about Sylvia Plath reinforces some of the personal references in her poetry. What I thought was most interesting was the connection that Plath had with death in nearly all parts of her life: her father died when she was young, she attempted suicide, had a miscarriage and finally succeeded in killing herself. It seems to me that many of her poems are very dark, perhaps because of this. One line that particularly "spoke to me" was "When one stark skeleton
Bulks real, all saints' tongues fall quiet," from "November Graveyard. Her relationship with Ted Hughes also affected her poetry very visibly. The poem "Burning the Letters" was composed during a turbulent time with Ted and likely alludes to when she burnt all of his letters.
I think that Atwood's poems are more universal simply because of the comments the class had about the different poems of the two poets. i noticed that when the class would talk about Atood, they almost never said "I think this is Margaret Atwood talking." They would suggest the speaker be "women who are mad at the stereotypical rich women, or a stripper, etc. However, in almost every poem that Plath writes, the readers amost always said that the speaker is infact Plath writing about her life. It just seems that Atwood picks different perspectives, but Plath is almost always writing from herself. This makes it seem like Atwood is more universal, because she does write from different perspectives and not always about herself. I am not saying though, that Plath is not relatable to the audience, it just seems that Atwood hits more audiences and perspectives through her poems.
1) The biographical information on Plath definitely puts Plath's poetry in better context and reinforces those themes of depression and the surface appearance compared to reality (which seems to appear a lot in Atwood's poetry too... although maybe for different reasons?). The duality of Plath's life, the fact that she seemed to have an ideal life - great student, published writer, husband, children, etc. - but almost every aspect of this 'perfect' life was deeply flawed, is reflected in her poetry. "Mirror" is especially interesting because I think it really reflects the twisted-ness of her life. The mirror reflects what is, it is apparently "...silver and exact. [It has] no preconceptions." Yet if you look deeper into it, "A woman bends over me,/Searching my reaches for what she really is." The surface reflection isn't what 'she' really is - like Plath's life. She's not the happy wife/modern woman she appears to be. I love those last lines, "In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman/Rises toward her day after day..." The mirror, as a symbol of her 'outer' life, has drowned her 'inner' life. The more she pursues surface achievements like getting published or having a happy family, the more she loses her feeling of who she really is (i.e. who 'Sylvia' is, beyond being just 'Sylvia Plath' or 'Ted Hughes's wife' etc.). The shift in "Mirror" between the two stanzas also seems to reflect (har har, no pun intended) a loss of innocence, which is then furthered in the last two lines. The mirror at first meditates on the wall that is "...pink, with speckles," (which, in my mind, is a cute, young, and girly sort of image) but later, becomes the reflection of a drowned young girl...
2) I don't like having to make a decision on which is more universal... but I feel that, after my research... Plath is more universal.
While Atwood speaks about both sexes in her poetry, and she discusses a general idea for everyone to understand, she tends to focus on a more feminist point of view. I can't be a girl, and I can't experience an orgasm from a girls perspective, and I can't know what a sister's love is like (when her sis. drives the car over the cliff)... there's just something i won't be able to understand.
Plath, however, focuses on nature, and on more universal type things. She has the ability to transcend time and vary up the sexes because she speaks of death.
I think that the poem Kindness is Sylvia's final cry for help, especially when she discusses the pinned down butterfly, he smoothering feeling of depression finally got to her and this way her sort of goodbye letter. I would have to agree with Kareem that Plath is more universal, but i think she is more universal because the human animal has a dark place inside of them. All people have felt depressed and smoothered, and plath brings that out in both men and women.
1. Most of Plath's poems that we read in class were very dark and deep. Most had short lines and some large stanzas. After visiting poets.org, Plath seems to be more in need of attention than actually in a suicidal mindset. She apparently left a note for one of the neighbors to come and find her before she was actually dead, but because of a fragmented time frame, the note failed to alert anyone in time to save her. The poems seem to relfect her cries for help. In "Kindness" she personifies the characteristic of kindness and speaks to it as though it may help her to solve her problems. She asks for happiness and smiles, but she also talks about how she believes kindness is just a coverup for everything that is truly wrong. The poems still have the same meaning for me as they did before researching Plath (I hope that doesn't mean I'm suicidal), but the research showed a more specific understanding of some of the poem. In "The Applicant", Plath asks the question 'will you marry it?', which may refer to how Ted Hughs treated her as another show thing, and then left her for another woman. She fells more like an 'it' than a person. Also, in "Kindness", she references children several times; the research suggested that she was actually talking about her children. This would suggest that she does draw joy from them, because she says that 'Kindness' gave them to her. However, she compares her children to roses, and roses do not last forever. Plath may have been thinking about how she would eventually lose her children, along with her husband. This may have been one of the sources of her depression. Plath seemed to need something that would bring her joy and never hurt her. In "Mirror", she talks about how the mirror sees everything, but never abandons the woman who comes to look in it. It seems that Plath wanted to be needed, but she learned that no one would ever need her forever.
While researching Plath, the biographical information on this poet seems to reinforce the basic themes we had previously discussed in class. That of depression and anxiety. One, when reading her poetry, can't help but feel as though one is on the brink falling into oblivion, of losing yourself in the caverns of anxiety, as if you are on the brink of understanding something great but it is swiftly taken away from you. I believe that Plath led her life in this same fashion. In pursuit of perfection but never obtainable, perhaps she never wanted to attain it and thus makes room for her want to commit suicide. However, what struck as most significant about her life or rather the fashion she ended it was the preciseness of the suicide note she left. Stating to call the doctor, the note was left at the time the landlord should have arrived, unfortunately the landlord was delayed and she died. One, at a cursory glance at this situation, would say she is crying for attention and help but I just can't believe that. Her poetry certainly suggests someone of extreme pain but she wants more than anything to overcome these fears. Perhaps then she attempted to commit suicide to cheat death, to overcome an absolute, to overcome all the absolutes of her life. I doubt this to be truly valid but it does pose some interesting questions.
Ah hard to pick who's more universal! i think that directly Margaret Atwood's poems are more wideranging. She talks about lots of different aspects of life in her poems but they all relate back to the entrapment of the speaker. And the fact that they KNOW that they are trapped like in Siren Song. The speaker is aware o their situation, " get me out of this bird suit" and wants out "I dont' enjoy it here" but can't escape. While Plath speaks too of entrapment it is usually of a more specific entrapment, the pressures of her situation. Of course this can be applied to many people, who hasn't felt pressured at one point? but not evryone will have experienced the pressures of raising two children, or an openly cheating husband. However human suffering is universal and Plath's poems certainly explore that facet of ourselves in depth. We all have a part of our personality thats like Plath. Also i think that Margaret Atwood's tone makes her poems more accessible to the reader. She often sounds as if she is talking to you rather than at you. Throught the uses of personal pronouns, usually "you" it seems more like shes confiding a secret than anything else. So i guess my vote goes for Margaret Atwood...at least tonight.
After researching Sylvia Plath I was able to better understand what the poem "Kindness" means. I think that in "Kindness" Plath is trying to decide whether or not to stay alive for her children. Plath died when her kids were really young and her father died when she was young. I think she felt guilty for considering leaving them the way her father left her.
2. I think Atwood's poetry is more universal because her themes seem to apply to just about everyone while Plath writes about her own private life. For example, "variations on the word sleep" is something everyone that has dreams can relate to. There doesn't seem to be anything so specific that only Atwood experienced in it. Dreams of a "wavering blue green forest" and "your worst fear" have been experienced by many people. Plath, on the other hand, writes specifically about her own life. The poem "Daddy" for example expresses her hate for her own father which are far from universal. Her sad life and depressing poems are also far from universal and hard to relate to since most of our lives are radically different than hers.
2.
The more universal poet I would say is Sylvia Plath. Her Pulitzer Prize after her death is an indication that she has a massive appeal after to not only the average reader but to the critics. Her poetry is focused around topics like marriage that I would say are more universal then what we see from Atwood in Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing. The manner of her death is also a very interesting factor in her universality as the overwhelming pressures of being a mother; wife, domestic caretaker and woman are something that the majority of the population of the world can relate to. People can simply sympathize with her more.
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