Snow White Intertext in Sylvia Plath’s Poppies in July?
Which three poetic techniques Sylvia Plath’s Poppies in July rely upon most heavily, and how do these techniques shape its meaning and impact?
Sylvia Plath’s 1962 poem, Poppies in July relies heavily on allusion, symbolism, and confessional poetry to shape meaning and impact through their interaction with each other and the ambiguity of Plath’s poetry. Together, they shape multiple meanings and emotional impacts. Firstly, fire and blood symbolism combine with opium allusions to chronicle a journey of pain and create meaning through “expressing the inexpressible” (Brittan). Secondly, confessional poetry is layered atop the previous analysis to demonstrate the emotional impact derived from a poet-reader connection and personal reading of the poem. Finally, symbolism, allusion, and confessional poetry combine to create a reading of the poem as an intertext to Snow White and The Seven Dwarves. Ultimately, it will be explored how the ambiguity of poetry allows different meanings to be imbued in Poppies in July through the interaction of symbolism, allusion, and confessional poetry.
Plath uses progressing fire symbolism, red symbolism, and allusions to opium to convey an overwhelming pain and turmoil. This is impactful because it shapes of pain as inescapable and all-consuming. In the opening line, “little poppies, little hell flames,” the “hell flames” in conjunction with the (red) poppies create an allusion to the process of heating the sap from poppy plants to make Opium. In doing this, the red colour symbolism of poppies and flames draw violent connotations to blood and bleeding, and burning, respectively. It is not until they are combined (and changed) that they become the source of a pleasant, drugged escape. In the same way that it’s not until they are consumed, that the speaker can escape the pain. Poetic ambiguity, while a point of contention among critics, is a creative advent of poetry as it assists in the interpretation of symbols. Brittan (2003) discusses the unique ability for symbols to “[express] the inexpressible,” (196) because “the only way to talk about such ideas that lie beyond rational knowledge is to use a language whose signs can have no logical literal meaning and are therefore open to interpretation.” (196). I argue that the pain Plath conveys is ‘inexpressible’ since it is so immense, and accordingly, can only be discussed through ambiguous and open-ended symbols. For example, as the poem progresses the fire symbols begin to morph and take on new meaning. The previous flames turn into a flicker, “you flicker. I cannot touch you,” expressing the instability and potential danger of this inner turmoil, and as a constant flame is needed to turn the poppy sap into opium. By changing the flame to a flicker, it also conveys that the respite the speaker is chasing more unobtainable. Later in, “there are fumes that I cannot touch,” the last transformation of the fire to fumes is shown. While the fume state is less volatile than the flickering, fumes are more dangerous because they are invisible to the naked eye, one can be all-consumed by (unconsciously) inhaling them. If the initial flame was symbolic of the inner turmoil and pain felt by the speaker, its transformation to fumes represents how this pain is now all-consuming. Once again, the opium is further from reach with an absence of fire. The pain reaches critical mass as the speaker begs, “if I could bleed, or sleep!”. This line cuts away from the fire symbolism and turns back to the colour symbolism and the violence associated with the colour red. Importantly, this couplet is the only one in the poem to include exclamation points which marks this as the emotional climax of the poem. The order of the two wishes (bleed, or sleep) is also important. Since bleed is spoken first it implies that it was the first one thought of and thus, the priority or at least instinct. This combination highlights the extent of the pain, in that a violent, bloody death is the only thing that seems sufficient to end the speaker’s pain since the opium is out of reach as represented by the absence of opium allusion in this line. Hence, the progression of the fire symbolism representing the transformation of pain and its relationship to the allusion to the production of opium and the colour red demonstrates how these techniques shape meaning and impact by constructing a route for Plath to “express the inexpressible”. Further, this analysis of allusion and symbolism serves as a basis to which further lenses can be added to for other readings and greater impact.
Moreover, the addition of confessional poetry to the previous analysis, creates impact by furthering the connection between poet and reader. The confessional aspect of Poppies in July allows Plath’s life and troubles to be brought into the frame of the discussion by reading the “I” persona as Plath which generates further meanings and interpretations. I will note that the extent of which to take Plath’s confessional poetry as autobiography, rather than poetry, is of great contention between Plath critics, and not what I am attempting here, instead following the most agreed reading that to read her works as purely autobiographical would be to do them a disservice. That is, to present a balanced reading. With this in mind, I draw on the approach of Gerbig & Müller-Wood that, “a chronology of events of an author’s life can provide the oeuvre with narrative coherence and resolve its inherent ambiguities,” (76) as a framework for my analysis. Plath had a history of depression and attempted to take her own life twice: once in 1953, and once in 1962, before committing suicide 8 months later in 1963. Poppies in July was written in 1962, after her second attempt and after her then-husband, Ted Hughes, had left her for another woman. By overlaying this history with the analysis constructed in the previous paragraph, new meaning can be paid to the allusions to death and the use of the first-person pronoun as she alludes to self-harm in, “[i]f I could bleed, or sleep!” This desire to ‘bleed’ alludes to self-harm, and the proximity to “sleep” draws the connotation of slipping into a painless unconsciousness, combining to paint an image of death (by suicide). By reading the confessional “I” as Plath, the aforementioned inner turmoil and pain is the devastation of being left by Hughes, paints this poem as a vessel for contemplating suicide. While this interpretation runs the risk of over-simplifying Gerbig & Müller-Wood’s “oeuvre”, it is an impactful reading because it conveys the very real pain of Plath to the reader and creates a deeper connection between the two. Indeed, Naylor-Smith’s argument to not “separate[e] Plath's identity from her poetic subject matter,” (Naylor Smith, 322) and to instead, “focus on the synergy Plath creates by writing of "her own history, as at once personal and part of a wider symbolic place"(Rose 981 quoted in Naylor Smith 322) becomes quite compelling to legitimise this interpretation. Taking this poem as Plath’s personal thoughts, gives the reader the feeling of being inside her head, and creates a greater poet-reader relationship. Consequently, this heightens the emotional experience of the poem, namely that it is a vessel for suicidal contemplation. A reading that is evidenced in the unfinished final couplet, “but colorless. Colorless. (sic)”. The established colour symbolism has now faded from red to become devoid of colour, representing that the pain has ceased. As has been established, colours are important to meaning making through symbolism, so what does something become symbolic of when it is colourless? In this case, I believe that it represents Plath’s indecision about whether to continue living or not. To refer to any other colour, would be to imbue meaning upon the line, however, even Plath herself is not sure what meaning to assign. This is further supported by the incomplete final couplet. To finish the couplet would be to give closure which innately suggest a decision. Hence, it is through the confessional aspects of Poppies in July, that personal connection and impact is made, demonstrating how the reliance on confessional poetics can create impactful meaning when combined with symbolism and allusion.
Finally, allusion, symbolism and confessional poetry create meaning in Sylvia Plath’s Poppies in July through their interaction to create an intertext to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Plath subverts symbols of the fairy tale as she wishes to become the comatose Snow White. This occurs through the connection of ambiguity and intertextuality, which Gerbig & Müller-Wood explain manifests so that, “[Plath’s] intertextual nets [create] a multitude of possible references,” (77). Which highlights how, “or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule,” reads as an allusion to the glass coffin from Snow White. On the surface, this line is a reference to a vial of opium which will relieve the speaker’s pain through sleep, however, the glass coffin from Snow White also carries this same resonance as a symbol of sleep for it is where Snow White is encased during her death-like state. Further, the ambiguous description in, “wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth,” creates an image of both a poppy’s puckered petals and also an apple’s wrinkly red skin creates a symbolic parallel of the two objects. Red symbolism is fundamental to Snow White as “lips red as blood” is a staple descriptor of her beauty carried from the original throughout many later iterations of the text and the colour of the apple that poisons her. This symbolic parallel functions to imbue the poppy with the same purpose as the apple which is to house the drugs that cause the sleeping state. In addition to Plath’s ambiguity making this intertext possible, so is the fact that she was familiar with the tale herself. “Plath’s first encounter with the Grimms’ tales was the original German text: … Märchen der Brüder Grimm: mit 100 Bildern nach Aquarellen (“Fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm: with 100 pictures based on watercolors”)” (Tamás 37) and has earlier prose and poetic works which respond to the stories’ themes, such as her 1957 poem The Disquieting of the Muses (Tamás 37), a statement which makes this reading plausible. Furthermore, the confessional poetry of this piece reads the speaker’s “I” as Plath, and through the intertext, equates her to Snow White— she is the one who will consume the drugs (the opium, or the poison) and who is associated with symbols of pain and blood. I argue the reason Plath uses the Snow White intertext and positions herself as Snow White is to convey her wishes for the eternal sleep contained in the “glass capsule”. She sees it as an easier alternative to death, instead it is (depending on the version) a sleep from which she can only be woken by true love’s first kiss, or some interference from the Prince. In the aftermath of Hughes’ departure, it is possible that she no longer saw herself as having any lover to wake her from this sleep, and thus rendering her sleep unending. In discussing aspects of confessional poets, Moldoveanu outlines a framework that is useful to understand why she goes to such lengths to create this parallel.
In dealing with the insurmountable need to escape from the troubled, mutilated self, confessional poets use all the stylistic devices at hand in order to have collective consciousness fragmented into particular receivers (readers) that will eventually give (another) reality or coherence to their trances. (186)
Given the personal issues in Plath’s life at the time, under this framework, she uses the intertextual allusions to Snow White to create the other “reality or coherence” with which to shape her poetry. When she is Snow White, she is neither dead, nor alive, but most importantly not in pain. Therefore, Poppies in July creates meaning and impact through intertextual references constructed from allusion, symbolism, and confessional poetry.
Ultimately, the ambiguity present in Sylvia Plath’s Poppies in July allows for a number of meanings to be derived from it and its interaction with symbolism, allusion, and confessional poetry each to a different impact. This is explored first through fire symbolism and colour symbolism, and opium allusions which express Plath’s otherwise inexpressible emotional pain and turmoil. Secondly, through how confessional poems deepen the poet-reader relationship and the heighten emotional impact of the poem. And finally, through the exploration of a Snow White and the Seven Dwarves intertextual reference. Thus, a poem is capable of multiple meanings, but those meanings multiply when the poem is overtly ambiguous and interacts with techniques. Particularly for Poppies in July with symbolism, allusion, and confessional poetry. This prompts the consideration of whether the author’s intent still holds stringent value if greater personal emotion is found through alternate readings of the poem.