Nishtha Bhatt

For as long as time, humans have told stories, and over the years, different forms of story telling have developed. One such form is mythology, when consists of essentially impossible events, such as rulers of an underworld and humans turning into stone. A poet as emotionally strained as Syliva Plath would be expected to use these unrealistic stories in yet another for of story telling; poetry. In "The Colossus", and "Two Sisters of Persephone", Sylvia Plath uses mythological images to create the poems situation, theme, and subjects, and to relate the subjects to one another.


One way in which mythological imagery is used by Sylvia Plath is to create a poem's situation and theme. In the colossus, a woman had been waiting for her husband to return from his overseas adventure, but the situation right now is that he has been turn into stone, most likely by her out of anger. "The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue/My hours are married to shadow." (Colossus 27-28). The fact that he has been turned into stone is a metaphor for how, just like stone statues cannot be changed, the events that occurred in the past cannot be changed. Plath is referring to her own husband through this situation, of how he cheated on her and the days of waiting for him to come home while he was doing this are part of the past. In "The Two Sisters of Persephone", the theme is that of change. During the time the poem was written, there existed two types of women, those who sat inside doing math and science as "Dry ticks mark[ed] time" (Persephone 8), and the other was one who still believed in doing what, supposedly, women were created to do; bear children. The other woman is outside, "Grass-couched in her labor's pride" (Persephone 23), being proud that she is about to have a child. The usage of mythological imagery to create a poem's situation and theme brings up a difference for the imagery's purpose.
Plath also uses imagery to relate the subjects of "Two Sisters of Persephone" and create the speaker in "The Colossus". The subjects of "Two Sisters of Persephone" are, as the name suggest, two sisters. They are polar opposites, as inside "The first works problems on/ A mathematical machine" (Persephone 6-7). This shows hat she is a modern woman, concentrating on activities like math and science. Her sister is more of a contemporary woman, married and with a child, as represented by "Freely become sun's bride, the latter/ Grows quick with seed" (Persephone 21-22) and she "Bears a king..." (Persephone 24). The first example represents her practice of having children, as babies essentially come from seeds, and the second one talks about her having a husband, and many woman refer to their spouses as their king, especially during the time when this poem was written. With ehse differences put under consideration, it becomes questionable how the two subjects can be places in the same poem, and the answer is mythological imagery. Persephone was the daughter of Zeus, who was abducted by Plato to be the queen of Hades. Plath calls the two women her sisters because they are both like her in one way; the first is forced inside, as Persephone was forced in the underworld, and the second has a kind, as Persephone did. Moving onto another usage of mythological imagery, Plath uses it to create the speaker in "The Colossus". In The Odyssey, there is a witch named Circe who Odysseus and his crew encounter on their journey, and she turns them into pigs through food she gives them. The speaker, similarly, turns her husband into a large, stone statue, as big as the stature of Helios. The quote "Proceed from your great lips" (Colossus 4), represents the magnified size of his lips. Another difference in the imagery's purpose is that of its usage for relating subjects and creating the speaker.


In both "The Colossus" and "Two sisters of Persephone", mythological imagery is used to create the subjects of the poems. In "The Colossus", the subject is a husband who has long been waited on by the speaker, but she has turned him to stone because of the emotional trouble he has caused her. The Colossus, was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and was a gigantic statue of the Greek god of Helios. The line "Piece, glued, and properly jointed" (Colossus 2) represent the fact that the husband is now a statue. In "Two Sisters of Persephone", similar imagery is used for the same reason. The subjects in this poem are two sisters. One is "In her dark wainscoted room" (Persephone 5), doing math problems, while the other is outside and "Bears a king" (Persephone 24). These two sisters are similar to the mythological creature Persephone, daughter of Zeus, who was abducted to the underworld, in the sense that one is contained inside in a dark place, and the other is the queen of her husband, who she calls her king. The use of mythological imagery to create the subjects is the only way in which the poems are related.


Sylvia Plath uses mythological imagery in the two poems to create the poem's subjects, theme, and situation, and to relate subjects together. Both mythology and poems have meanings, subjects, themes, and though this list can go on, it is an ingenious idea to use one in the other to prove a point. Doing this makes Sylvia Plath as excellent of a writer as Homer, and it is with no doubt that she should be just as praised.