ENGLISH 1A03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Simile

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Kindness Sylvia Plath
Background
Both poems today are written by women in the 1960s
Both about domesticity, tending to chores around the home, at home
POEM
Personification of “kindness”
o Turns her into “Dame Kindness”
o There is a suggestion that at the end Kindness is the one who gives her a cup of
tea at the end, as well as 2 children, 2 roses
Growing sense of menace within the context of domestic niceties
o It sets up the idea of a happy home
§ First stanza gives us feelings of happiness “gliding, smile”
o But then after the “cry of a child” à sense of menance
o There is something specifically distressing about a cry of a child, because it is a
soul crying out in distress
§ The house is now a place where children cry
o The irony of the sugar, as such a simple and superficial thing, that can heal the
cry of a soul
Juxtaposition of images of beauty/comfort with danger/damage
o Words of beauty and comfort are placed right next to something not pleasant
§ Sugar is placed next to cured à there is a disease or sickness
§ The delicate beautiful Japanese silk à delicate butterflies that can be easily
pinned and destroyed
§ Steaming cup of tea with “blood jet” à the poem has poured out of the
poet, it is a sign of damage and pain
All work to frame the gifts offered by “dame kindness” in deep ambiguity: are “two
children, two roses” sources of happiness or of harm
o On their own, children and roses could be actual delicate beautiful gifts
o But in ambiguity of the poem, they are also sources of harm and danger
§ The narrator is the caretaker of the house, these things are not just gifts,
they are mortal responsibilities that the narrator must carry
The Afterwake - Adrienne Rich
Poem
The invisible yet “colossal” labour of care work: the speaker describes the burden
she absorbs in the process of “nursing” another, allowing them to “rest”
o As a woman, the speaker is responsible for a massive amount of things, the
house, relationships etc.
o The speaker is talking about the giant burden that she feels from taking care of
this person
§ Not sure who the person is
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