Analysis Of Sylvia Plath's Metaphors

In Sylvia Plath’s poem “Metaphors,” she uses metaphors to portray a riddle. The answer to the riddle is pregnancy. A metaphor is when one thing is, or becomes, something else that it is not. The title, “Metaphors,” describes pregnancy to Plath because the metaphors are what a woman becomes when she is pregnant. In this poem, Plath uses metaphors to describe how she views a pregnant woman. The first line, “I’m a riddle in nine syllables,” introduces the riddle to the reader (1). The number nine is an important figure in this poem. The title “Metaphors” has nine letters. This poem is made up of nine lines, which means that there are nine metaphors describing a pregnant woman. Every line has nine syllables. This representation of the number nine …show more content…
This line portrays “heaviness” (Alkalay-Gut, 1992, 190). An elephant is a massive, heavy animal just like Plath viewed a pregnant woman (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008, November 11). “A ponderous house,” is also heavy, not just physically, but mentally, according to the definition of ponderous (2; Alkalay-Gut, 1992). The next metaphor is “A melon strolling on two tendrils” (3). A melon is a large, round fruit but imagine that on two tendrils, which are “the leafless vines of plants” (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008, November 11, 2). The word “strolling” adds emphasis on how the woman would be slowly walking with this new weight (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008, November 11). The “tendrils” also give the perception of not just the instability with this new weight, but also that this new weight of a baby may be too much to handle on these “thin” legs, or “tendrils” (Alkalay-Gut, 1992, …show more content…
This line states metaphors that represent a baby; however, this is not joyful because each one signifies “destruction” (Alkalay-Gut, 1992, 190). The “red fruit” must be picked from a “vine,” such as the “tendrils” (Alkalay-Gut, 1992, 190). “Ivory” is acquired after killing a, previously mentioned, elephant. “Fine timbers” are used to build a house, which Plath describes as “ponderous” (4; (Alkalay-Gut, 1992, 190). The fifth line, “This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising” describes how a woman’s body grows during pregnancy (5). Just as the baby inside a woman causes her stomach to grow, the yeast in bread causes it to rise in the oven. Plath is representing a baby as bread being baked in an oven (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008, November 11). Plath’s next metaphor is “Money’s new-minted in this fat purse” (6). “New-minted” means money that has just been printed and is new. This is a metaphor referring to the baby as “new money” (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008, November 11, 1). The “fat purse” is once again Plath’s description of a pregnant woman, who gets bigger through pregnancy. This line can also be looked at as the woman giving birth to a baby (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008, November