Jeff Liu

Plants

Throughout most of her poems, Sylvia Plath has had at least one reference to plants or flowers. Plants are peaceful things that grow and Plath uses plant/flower imagery to integrate peace and growth in her poems. In her poem, “Mushrooms”, Plath uses mushrooms as the main metaphor, not once in that poem does the word mushroom appear yet the imagery allows readers to understand the metaphor. Plath believed that women deserve independence and equal opportunities as men, a peaceful world where men and women are equals. In her poem, “Tulips”, Plath uses these flowers to as an object of peace. It seems that Plath has received these flowers as a gesture of kindness and it symbolized the hope of spring.
In “Mushrooms”, the growth of women’s independence can be seen, “We shall by morning inherit the earth. Our foots at the door”. In these lines we can see how Plath compared mushrooms with women of her time, the stalks as feet firmly in preparation to prove themselves to the men, or to the world. In “Tulips”, growth can be seen as tulips disrupted the bareness of the room before, a sudden change. Plath uses plants and flowers in these poems to represent a change that is occurring.
Peace can be achieved when everyone stands on the same level, in “Mushrooms”, peace can be the fruit of the women’s labor in their effort to be recognized by men around them. Plath writes about men’s unappreciative attitude towards women and how women do things for men, “We diet on water, on crumbs of shadow, bland-mannered, asking, little or nothing”. The setting in “Tulips” is that of a patient lying in bed in a white hospital. The patient is perfectly content with no one to watch her as she lays in her white room. Someone brings her flowers and the red tulips disrupt her version of peace, lying in bed, lonely without anyone to watch her. Tulips symbolize a peace different than the one the patient is in, the hope of spring. However, the patient rejects the new peace and is rather upset upon receiving them, “The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me. Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe…They are subtle…they weigh me down”.
The imagery of plants and flowers are light and peaceful. They represent growth and potential as plants start from grains of seeds and grow into plants, thousands, sometimes millions of times greater than when they began. Plants bring peace as they represent the light and warmth of spring, sometimes as gifts. Plath uses plants and flowers to bring potential and harmony in her poems.