Rene Suleiman

A War of Words: Sylvia Plath and War Imagery

War has plagued this world since the beginning of time with its skewed glory and honor. From wars of violence and destruction to wars of a more subtle nature they have been raging among civilized society for centuries. Sylvia Plath, the late and decorated poet of the twentieth century, wages her own war with words in her two poems “Daddy” and “The Swarm”. These two poems, containing all the poetic elements that a true poetry connoisseur craves, take the reader through a vivid journey of the horrors of war and its consequences. Through her splendid use of war imagery, Plath not only paints a picture of bloody warfare but also of its combatants; the men who perpetuate it. Sylvia Plath uses war imagery in “Daddy” and “The Swarm” to criticize war and the men who fight them.

Sylvia Plath takes an anti-war stance in her two highly acclaimed poems “Daddy” and “The Swarm” through her use of imagery. Her first poem, although mainly about her relationship with her father, also denounces war with vivid descriptions, “The tongue stuck in my jaw./It stuck in a barb wire snare./I could hardly speak.” (“Daddy” 25-28). Her use of the imagery ‘barbed wire snare’ brings forth a clear picture of the fences that imprison millions during wartime. The ‘snare of war’ illustrated makes Plath mute; she and others cannot speak due to war’s oppressive nature which silences the masses. This description of war’s silencing nature as well as the poem’s overall theme of Nazism casts a highly negative light on warfare. In “The Swarm” she takes a more blatant approach in condemning war, “Somebody is shooting at something in our town--/A dull pom, pom in the Sunday street./Jealousy can open the blood,/It can make black roses./Who are they shooting at?” (“The Swarm” 1-5). This stanza as well as the entire poem carries a more questioning and cynical tone, Plath is stating events and questioning them. The words ‘A dull pom, pom in the Sunday street’ signify gunfire which interrupts the peace of Sunday Sabbath, and her later lines connect jealousy to warfare and bloodshed. Plath also fails to understand the gunfire with the question, ‘Who are they shooting at?’, which communicates the idea that there is no point to war except jealousy and greed, which creates hate instead of love, ‘It can make black roses’. All of these images of war and violence send the message that warfare, created and fought proudly by men, is a terrible occupation.

Sylvia Plath also uses war imagery to castigate the men who fight and begin the wars that she so abhors. In “Daddy” she demonizes men and makes them inhuman, “Every woman adores a Fascist,/The boot in the face, the brute/Brute heart of a brute like you.” (“Daddy” 48-50). While employing sarcasm and vague generalizations with the line, ‘Every woman adores a Fascist’, Plath describes this Fascist as a ‘brute’, an animal with no emotion or human characteristics. In this she is depicting men as beasts of warfare who think and act in ways that only savages could understand. Similarly in “The Swarm” Plath casts light on the absence of sense in men of war, “The dumb, banded bodies/Walking the plank draped with Mother France’s upholstery” (“The Swarm” 47-48). Through this image of men ‘walking the plank’ adorned with spoils of war, Plath shows that while these ‘dumb’ men think that they are moving to victory, in reality they are walking to their death through unnecessary violence. Also her characterization of the men as ‘dumb, banded bodies’ shows soldiers not in a singular glorified light but rather in a pack mentality, that they cannot think for themselves. Through her effective use of war imagery, Plath elucidates her ongoing anti-war sentiment and her disgust with the creators of war.

Even though war is a highly destructive and senseless employment, society continues to perpetuate the idea that war glorifies and adorns men with honor and duty to their country and to their people. In reality, and in the opinion of Sylvia Plath, war destroys and kills innocent lives, makes the men who fight them brainwashed and savage, and is altogether a terrible occupation. Sylvia Plath is not the only person to use creative means to express doubt on warfare; many war veterans jaded with the world have spoken up about the atrocities committed on the battlefield. While society laments the loss of life through violence in wartime, it must also remember that it is the victim of its own creation.

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