Re-reading of ‘A Birthday Present’

Re-read A natal day Present. By means of close compendium of the language of this metrical composition, demonstrate how Plath achieves her effects in this poem, and by means of truncated reference to hotshot or twain some other(a) poems, say how ordinary of her paper you find it.Plaths poem A Birthday Present creates binary oppositions of images by employ antithesis. An example of antithesis in this poem is when the fibber asks, is it ugly, is it beautiful? The adjectives ugly and beautiful be opposing images. The structure of this phrase is reverberate in the line at a lower place when the narrator asks, has it breasts, has it edges? These two images ar opposite as when we imagine breasts they are round and smooth and not sharp like an edge. By using this lingual device Plath creates a seesaw effect between positive (beautiful) and proscribe (ugly) lexis. Plath uses this device of conflicting lexis throughout the poem creating a tension.Furthermore, it can in addi tion be said that Plath uses these binary oppositions on a more knowing level to create the stem of good vs. evil. This theme can be seen in some of Plaths other poems. Take Face Lift or good morning Song for example, the theme of good and evil is represented by the images of babies she juxtaposes with those of death. The same binary opposition of images is used in A Birthday Present when the narrator says, dust coat as babies bedding and glittering with dead breath. Again the two pose images are of death and babies. It can therefore be said that this theme is typical of Plaths writing and is probably influenced by the miscarriage she suffered prior to writing these poems.Another device that Plath employs for a specific effect in this poem is her use of the personal pronoun you. The narrator questions, Is it impossible for you to let something go and do it go whole? and, Must you kill what you can? Many other writers use this device to achieve the desired effect of involving t he audience as it addresses them directly. However Plath also has another motive. On first glance one may assume that the narrator is questioning the present as it is the unpatterned focus of the narrator throughout the poem. However, considering the number of references to divinity fudge throughout the poem, (My God what a laugh, But my god, the clouds are like cotton.) one could appreciate that the question is actually aimed at God.Moreover, the theme in A Birthday Present of questioning God can be linked to some of Plaths other poetry. Plaths father died when she was a young child. From studying her life I rear out that she loved and idolised her father. In her poems Daddy and Full sink in Five Plath harbours baneful suggests that she now sees her father as a God-like figure. In Full Fathom Five she writes, You defy other Godhood. I walk dry on your kingdoms ring, when talking to her father. This could therefore be evidence that although she may seem to be addressing the birthday present with questions in this poem she is really questioning to her Dad. The theme of Dad arises in many of Plaths poems and so this poem is typical of her writing. deal many of Plaths other poems she uses embodiment in A Birthday Present to admit an inert object appear to have a life of its own. The narrator is describing the present when she says, I feel it looking. I feel it thinking. The two verbs are actions that only a living person could do. Plath, however uses them to make the present in the poem come alive. The literary device of personification is typical to some of Plaths other poems. One example is in her poem Cut where she personifies her thumb by referring to it as Little pilgrim, Saboteur and Kamikaze man, before reminding us at the end of the poem that it is just a Thumb stump. This is therefore a device that Plath uses typically in her writing.In conclusion, many of the themes and ideas found in A Birthday Poem can also be found and mirrored in Plaths ot her poetry. She also uses a range of literary and linguistic devices in this poem that is typical of her writing.