HL Essay Outline

Colossus and Tulips

How is the feeling of loss depicted in Sylvia Plath’s poems, Colossus and Tulips?

The two poems I’ve chosen are Colossus and Tulips By Sylvia Plath. Both of these poems deal with the
loss of someone dear to them and how they cope with it. In Colossus the author loses her father and in
Tulips , the author has a miscarriage and loses her baby and feels lifeless and has zero hope on life
similar to how the poet feels in Colossus. The feeling of loss is depicted in different ways in both the
poems , in the first poem Colossus her father is depicted as a fallen statue , whereas in the second
poem,the poet loses all hope on life as she loses her baby because of her miscarriage and she just sits
still in her hospital room waiting for her death to come.

I will be exploring the themes of Colossus using Imagery to use the visual description she’s used make us
feel the painful loss of her father. “ I shall never get you put entirely” , by this she means that she will
never be able to take things back to the way they were and she has also accepted defeat trying to piece
back her father , which shows immense imagery in this line.

Metaphor would be another good literary device to explore the theme which would be how she
portrayed her father through Colossus a greek god who is neither alive nor dead” Your fluted bones and
acanthine hair are littered”

. In the second poem , The poet is feeling lifeless and hopeless because of her miscarriage and is just
sitting waiting for her death but she finds a glimmer of hope through tulips , which she sees as full of life
and hope , that change her perception on life. Symbolism “The tulips are too excitable, it is winter
here. / Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in” and Personification” vivid tulips eat
my oxygen”; “they hurt me” and “Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe”. are the
literary devices I’d like to use to explore the themes of the second poem.

In the first poem Sylvia Plath the poet deals with the death of the father as a metaphor , comparing her
father to the Greek God Colossus who is neither dead nor alive which is how she perceives her father ,
dead in reality but alive in her thoughts , the statue is completely shattered and broken which she
compares to her father and she tries to piece it together, through incredible imagery her father is
depicted as a fallen statue and her as his keeper. She uses the statue as a beautiful multi layered
metaphor. The image of the statue and it’s destruction is used as a metaphor to describe how she feels
about her father’s death. She mourns her father’s death by expressing her sadness or frustration
towards the statue and often talks about her relationship with her statue ( her father ). This poem’s
themes are death , sorrow , suffering and relationships. She’s stuck in a toxic loop where she is unable to
accept the fact that her father is gone and keeps trying to get him back by trying to piece the remains of
the statue , she knows that it’s impossible but she sees no other way out of this misery she’s in. she
pointlessly tries to piece her father back together and just sits there and expresses her emotions to the
statue which is a metaphor for her father. She says she’s moving up “little ladders” while carrying “pots
and pails” , which both are alliterations indicating that she keeps doing the same thing over and over
again. This depicts how toxic and draining a loss can be. Plath is known for crafting complex, moving
images that are equally beautiful as they are disturbing. This poem is no exception. One of the best
examples comes from the last stanza with the lines: “ Counting the red stars and those of plum-color. /
The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue”. In the second poem Sylvia Plath , loses all hope on life and
refers to herself as “baggage” and has absolutely no interest of pursuing or doing anything in life and
just wants to lay in her white hospital room waiting for death to come to her as she lies there , in the
cold of the winter. This sadness occurred to her due to the fact that she lost her baby in a miscarriage
and feels as though she has lost everything fully. The tulips symbolise life and seem “exciting” to her and
full of life which is something she doesn’t want anymore and finds that small hospital room comfortable
and wants nothing to do with anything or anybody else and just wants to wait for her death to come as
the cold winter passes by. She says “ the tulips are too excitable” , which shows that she finds them full
of life and something to look forward to , but she prefers sitting in white plain noise as she says “ Look
how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in.” Plath discusses how much a loss can effect
somebody as in the poem , she’s talking about how she prefers a meaningless life , because the tulips
are rather suggesting that she should live her life to the fullest , because of the vibrant colors and how
fresh they look. She feels confined to the four walls of the hospital room instead. She uses the two main
words “quiet” and “white” which is an imagery and gives us an idea of how the hospital room is , very
close to her liking as it matches her state of mind. Plath deals with death , loss and sorrow in a very
different kind of a way , these two poems have a more depressing hollow theme as she embraces
sadness rather than disliking it , she prefers to be this way and not go out there and live her life to the
fullest. Plath seems comfortable with the depressive episode she’s going through and finds the beauty In
it and embraces which I believe is a very unique approach. “I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo
boat stubbornly hanging on to my name and address. Sink out of sight, and the water went over my
head.I am a nun now, I have never been so pure.” Says Plath in the poem tulips , this indicates that she
thinks of herself as a boat that just has baggage , probably referring to her husband and her child. She
feels as though it is an obligation to be living , as she feels like her relationships in her life are emotional
baggage and she has no interest in living and embracing those relationships. She talks about sinking
away and lifelessness too. By nun , she means her mind is a clean slate and she has blank thoughts and
it’s a white space. This shows that she deals with sorrow in a very deep way a she is involving and
including little details that have a huge impact , in the poem tulips she the main tension would be
between the full of life , excitable tulips and her wish to continue or more likely end her life or live it in a
hopeless way as she is grieving right now. Plath’s poems always have a conflict , for example , in tulips ,
she is is talking about the battle between two sides , such as living a hopeless life or going out there and
living and embracing her life to the fullest , whereas in colossus she knows that there is no bringing her
father back but she still hopelessly tries , she hasn’t had the best relationship with her father too. Plath
often uses metaphors in her poetry to depict the feeling of loss and death , such as in tulips , the flowers
indicate the hope of life whereas in colossus the statue refers to her father that is absolutely destroyed
which she compares to the demise of her father.The tulips appear to her as a beacon of hope and life
but because of her grieving she doesn’t find it appealing and prefers to lay in her sadness. In colossus ,
she tries to piece the statue back together , referring to her father whom she is aimlessly trying to bring
back. As we can see Plath has a very unique way of expressing loss and sorrow and I believe that she
brings a different perception to areas that seem to be depressing or sad such as the feeing loss , but to
embrace it and find comfort is a tough job which I admire about these poems.

Please add bibliography