Sylvia Plath’s “Morning Song” explores a mother’s complex emotions towards her newborn child after giving birth for the first time. Although motherhood is often regarded as a joyous event that gives a woman’s life purpose and meaning, “Morning Song” instead depicts motherhood as a complicated event fraught with uncertainty and fear, but also with love and affection. Rather than expressing overwhelming love and happiness, the mother in the poem feels distant from her child and gradually learns to form a loving bond with them over the course of the poem. Through its precise, stark language and ambiguous similes and metaphors “Morning Song” challenges romantic ideas of the immediate bond between mother and child and depicts a mother’s honest,
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As the sun begins to rise in her baby’s room the speaker says, “the window square/ whitens and swallows its dull stars” (15-16). First, it is important to note that “the window square” is the end of the last line from the last stanza. Whereas all the previous stanzas ended with complete sentences and punctuation, the fifth stanza ended with an open sentence to connect it with the last stanza, suggesting that the mother is also beginning to open up and seek a connection with her child. The imagery of the sunrise also implies that the mother is beginning to feel the joy of motherhood. Although the dull stars swallowed by the white sunlight seem to symbolize the mother’s old dreams and ambitions fading away, they are replaced with the new white light and the newfound purpose of motherhood. Despite her old dreams fading away, the speaker no longer seems to fear the change and begins to see motherhood as a positive change. The mother’s change in perspective is illustrated in the next lines when she compares her child’s voice to music and balloons, saying “And now you try/ your handful of notes;/ the clear vowels rise like balloons” (16-18). Instead of giving the child’s voice the sharp, grating connotation as its “bald cry,” this metaphor instead implies that the mother sees it as light, clear, and musical. This metaphor also refers back to the title of the poem, “Morning Song,” bringing the poem full circle and creating a sense of closure for both the mother and the reader. Although the speaker had a cynical view of childbirth and had trouble connecting to her child, the final stanza suggests that the mother has begun to love her child and now views motherhood as a positive, although difficult,
As the sun begins to rise in her baby’s room the speaker says, “the window square/ whitens and swallows its dull stars” (15-16). First, it is important to note that “the window square” is the end of the last line from the last stanza. Whereas all the previous stanzas ended with complete sentences and punctuation, the fifth stanza ended with an open sentence to connect it with the last stanza, suggesting that the mother is also beginning to open up and seek a connection with her child. The imagery of the sunrise also implies that the mother is beginning to feel the joy of motherhood. Although the dull stars swallowed by the white sunlight seem to symbolize the mother’s old dreams and ambitions fading away, they are replaced with the new white light and the newfound purpose of motherhood. Despite her old dreams fading away, the speaker no longer seems to fear the change and begins to see motherhood as a positive change. The mother’s change in perspective is illustrated in the next lines when she compares her child’s voice to music and balloons, saying “And now you try/ your handful of notes;/ the clear vowels rise like balloons” (16-18). Instead of giving the child’s voice the sharp, grating connotation as its “bald cry,” this metaphor instead implies that the mother sees it as light, clear, and musical. This metaphor also refers back to the title of the poem, “Morning Song,” bringing the poem full circle and creating a sense of closure for both the mother and the reader. Although the speaker had a cynical view of childbirth and had trouble connecting to her child, the final stanza suggests that the mother has begun to love her child and now views motherhood as a positive, although difficult,