First Post

"The Yellow Wall-Paper":

The image that struck me most in this story was her description of the children's room. Nothing about the room seems appealing. "The color is repellant, almost revolting: a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight" (43). The room sounds hideous and she cannot find anything she likes about it. I thought this image, compared to the image of the outside of the house (42), really stood out. She hates everything about the room, but loves the way the house looks from the outside. On the inside, she wants to change everything. She doesn't want the bedroom where it is; she wants to be in a different part of the house with different scenery. I think the children's room is a very important image in this story because it is the only actual room in the house that she hates because her husband makes her stay in that room.


"Lady Lazarus"

The image that struck me most in this poem was "For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge/For the hearing of my heart-/It really goes" (289). This image reminds me of the film The Virgin Suicides because when the youngest daughter attempts suicide, she is left with scars down her wrists. Her sisters try to cover the bandages with bracelets so as not to embarass their sister at her birthday party, but people still look. This image is important because it touches on how emotionally raw Plath is, and how it is a privilege for her to let people into her life.
The second image that I liked is the last stanza, "Out of the ash/I rise with my red hair/And I eat men like air" (290). Her self-comparison to a phoenix/fire is fantastic. It is a strong, powerful image of woman rising through the pain and disappointment only to destroy somebody else.

"When I Was Growing Up"

This poem reminded me of Their Eyes Were Watching God and how the protagonist in that story discovers a hierarchy among other African Americans. Because she is part white, she has blonde, straight hair and light skin. Those with darker skin got less privileges that her and were treated worse. The image that reminded me of this was "when I was growing up, my sisters/with fair skin got parised/for their beauty, and in the dark/I fell further, crushed between high walls" (295). I thought this was so sad that because of a random genetic line-up, the author felt less special and less beautiful than her sisters.

"The Thirty Eighth Year"

What struck me most about this poem was that the author praises being dark and not white, unlike the author in "When I Was Growing Up". "if it is western/if it is the final/Europe in my mind/if in the middle of my life/i am turning the final turn/into the shining dark/let me come to it whole/and holy/not afraid/not lonely" (298). She wants to be less European because she wants to be like her mother, a wise black woman.

"Ain't I A Woman?"

I thought this speech was so powerful, I had to read it again. I loved her point on how ridiculous it is that men deserve more rights than women because Jesus was a man. "Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him" (442). I thought that was so brilliant. It made me think of The Da Vinci Code because in that story, people tried for thousands of years to deny that Mary Magdalene was an important figure in Christ's life and that they were married. They tried to shut out the fact that a woman could have been powerful and meaningful to Jesus himself. My favorite image was "If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, woudn't you be mean not to let me have my little hald-measure full?" (442). I loved that she addressed the rumors that women couldn't be as smart as men because their brains were smaller. Brilliant, overall.