Zahra Rukh

Power: The Use of Heavenly Body Imagery By Sylvia Plath
Many poets use imagery in their poems to make the poem sound more poetic. Most of those poems have only a couple of imagery, but Plath uses imagery in her poems like breathing. One of the imagery that Plath frequently uses is the image of heavenly bodies. In “The Colossus” and “morning song” images of heavenly bodies are used to invoke a feeling of power.
Heavenly bodies are constantly used in Plath’s poetry. The main theme of morning song is about a mother giving birth to a child. The birth seems like it was given at night when there was a full moon present. Although Plath never uses the word “moon” or “night” specifically, her poem gives the impression that it was at night. It could not have been a full moon because Plath says “dull stars”. If there was a full moon the stars would not been “dull”. Giving birth is an extremely powerful thing because you are giving life to a living thing. Although Plath has provided life for this child she feels no real attachment toward her child. “I’m no more your mother/ than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow/ effacement at the wind’s hand” (Song 7-9). Plath uses cloud to create an image for the distance she feels from her child. Plath throws around the heavenly bodies, this make the feeling of power even stronger. Plath shows carelessness with her statement “whitens and swallows its dull stars”( “Song” 16). “Dull” star gives the feeling of disattachment. Stars are what allow you to see during the darkness of the night. In that case stars invoke a feeling of power, but Plath uses them in a careless way, not appreciating their power of the stars, which kind of hits the reader. “It would take more than a lightning-stroke/ to create such a ruin” (“Colossus” 22-23). Here Plath is again weakening something that is very strong and powerful. When someone says a light has struck their town, you would get an image of everything being destroyed by this lightning, but Plath says that even this is not enough. this is a powerful image, it gives the image of something even bigger and more destructive.
“I’m no more your mother/ than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow/ effacement at the wind’s hand” (Song 7-9). Plath is describing the separation that she feels from her child through the use of heavenly bodies. “… counting the red stars and those of plum-color./ the sun rises under the pillar of your tongue” (“Colossus” 26-27). Again, Plath uses the strong and powerful image of the heavenly bodies to get her message across. The sun is looked at as the father of the universe, the sun is also looked as something powerful which is the main reason that Plath uses it here in this content. Plath uses the sun to describe the size of the colossus and the importance of the statue. The colossus was so big that she had to use something that is enormous to show us the size and importance of the statue.
Heavenly bodies are used to show power. Plath uses the heavenly bodies in a careless way that makes the feeling even more powerful. This device seems to be very effective.