Plath - Medallion

Question 1

About

Answer 1

A person’s psychological vulnerability due to vastness of nature

Question 2

S1

Answer 2

-4 irregular stanzas

-How nature is structured but also erratic and unpredictable

Question 3

S2

Answer 3

-Enjambment

-The flow of the winds as it bends destiny in one direction and the narrator cannot escape their impending fate

-Plath – White Goddess (Shamanic element) / Plath in her depression feels as if she is being forced into one direction – motif of being ensnared/ entrapped

Question 4

Critic

Answer 4

Warren “her poems are full of colour when the tone is dark and comfortless”

-Through the malevolent depictions of nature

Question 5

P1

Answer 5

The harsh emphatic opening “horizons ring me like faggots” evokes a metaphorical motif of darkness

-Monosyllabic personification “ring me” revitalizes potent imagery of someone having the life sucked from them

-Electroshock therapy

Question 6

P2

Answer 6

-Hostile fairytale paradigm of the sheep’s “grandmotherly disguises” emphasises a predator – prey motif

-Infantile – Blakean innocence – Plath still feels trauma of father’s death and is like a small child trapped in a woman’s body

Question 7

P3

Answer 7

-Grotesque “hard marbly baas” emulate a villainous quality

-Onomatopoeic monotone “baas” illustrate the isolation of the atmosphere and how the narrator is vulnerable and alone

Question 8

P4

Answer 8

-Simile “small change” dramatizes the darkness that encapsulates the poem

-Civilization seems far away and distant

-Psychological suicide/ depression