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Essay / Representation of Violence in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes
The theme of violence is commonly identified in the poetry of Plath and Hughes; however, the way it is incorporated by the two very different poets contrasts with each other, from the use of techniques, the different tones throughout – to the topics and content of the poems. Hughes, as a poet, was considered more "popular" at the time as he was at his peak, as his poetry was considered more traditional at the time, as he wrote ingenious poetry about average subjects, then that Plath's revolutionary "confessional" poetry was less widely read by the oppressed society of the mid-20th century. Indeed, her poetry was considered complex, as she wrote about sensitive and repressed subjects such as childbirth, the immense difficulties and struggles of motherhood and her lifelong depression, which society would have been shocked to read and maybe made you feel uncomfortable. This is a result of society's conditioning to classify these topics as "taboo" since childhood, meaning that Plath's poetry has not received as much recognition as it does today, after her death, in our modern and contemporary society. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay. A Plath poem I will write in – “Cut” – explores violence in an almost self-destructive way that, although graphic in terms of the images created and language used, is not as explicit as Hughes' poetry in the manner whose violence he writes about in a direct and inescapable way. The poem, as a whole, is about Plath in the domestic setting of a kitchen, probably preparing dinner alone, when she suddenly cuts her thumb with the knife she is using, but her later response suggests more psychological tensions deeper than any ordinary tension. a kitchen accident. Arguably, the “cut” she speaks of refers not only to her physical cut, but perhaps an emotional cut that could foreshadow her future suicide. Plath opens the poem by saying “what a thrill” to describe her feeling about this injury. . We deduce that she is engaging in self-mutilation here; and the rest of the poem supports this as well, as there is no evidence to suggest that it was actually an injury, as she opens the poem not by stating the injury, but actually the thrill that she felt it. There is a parallel to this suggestive tone of self-harm in her novel "The Bell Jar", which describes the character's thoughts about self-harm in which the protagonist Esther describes her experience as a "small, deep thrill". She also briefly mentions the Klu Klux Klan in a simile comparing them to the medical gauze she uses to cover her cut, which is a right-wing American organization that Plath strongly disapproves of. The image of their white uniforms stained by his blood here is symbolic of the blood of their violent attacks on black people. The inclusion of the predominant red color here over white reinforces the theme of violence. White, as a color, has positive connotations of purity, innocence and virginity while red can be interpreted as a negative representative of anger, danger and violence. The theme of violence against others and against herself is clear here and extends to many of her other poems as well. However, Hughes incorporates the theme of violence in a much more explicit way in relation to his wife Plath. For example in his poem “Pike”; which describes the nature of the fish as well as his experience with it. In the first.