Sylvia Plath's 'Morning Song'

Sylvia Plath’s ‘Mirrors’ was written two years before she had committed suicide and the context behind this was mainly due to her chronic depression. On the other side of the spectrum, ‘Morning Song’ was written and composed in dedication to her newborn daughter, Frieda. ‘Mirrors’ records the life of a woman staring at herself through reflection the clear and uninfluenced eyes of a mirror, there is a consistent pessimistic view about revealing one’s true self. ‘Morning Song’, however is filled with joy and optimism, it celebrates and glorifies the birth of Plath’s daughter and the title refers to the “song” of her daughter’s cry and the “morning” signifies the beginning of a new life. There are very few similarities as both these poems are …show more content…
The first example of a metaphor is when the mirror compares itself to a “little god” meaning it reflects everything it sees as if it was a deity. Towards the end there is a very strong simile where the woman compares herself to turning into a “terrible fish” over the course of time, implying she has been stripped of all her beauty and left an old, grotesque woman. The fact that it uses the word “god” to describe itself is quite confronting and there is a lack of capitalisation signifying it could be any god. ‘Morning Song’ also has its fair share of language techniques such as the implementations of many metaphors. It starts off comparing the life Plath’s Daughter’s to a “gold fat watch” signifying the starting of a new life. In the following sentence she also describes her daughter’s cry as “bald”, not normally used to describe the sound of a cry but in this context implies it is fresh and anew. Many of the metaphors used relate to something new and the beginning of it for instance describing the baby’s arrival as a “new statue in a drafty museum” which translates into the new baby entering the average, mundane world. Plath also underpins how grateful and happy she is to have her newborn daughter by comparing the sound of her breathing to the soothing sea. It then ends with a simile comparing the sound of her daughter’s voice rising delightfully and pleasantly, only to further express her appreciation for the existence of her