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Wuthering Heights

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Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights
The poem uses a first person narrative which is common in a lot of Plath’s poetry. She is speaking openly to us about both here surroundings and the feeling she thereby connects with them. Plath relates throughout the poem to the character Catherine (from wuthering heights by Emily Bronte). Both are tempted by suicide, both are strongly connected to the nature around them. This is shown most in the last stanza, “the sky leans on me”. Here she could be trying to justify her thoughts of suicide by telling us that if the sky has fallen in on her what hope does she have left. This seems to be a prominent idea however this line could be seen as she has a lot on her mind. She is obviously fighting against something. This could be her inner emotion or she may believe she is in some way cursed and everything is closing in about her. She chooses to show a very negative opinion of the horizon this I believe has a lot to do with the fact she sees it as closing in around her therefore she sees it as a threat as appose to a thing of beauty.

Throughout the poem Plath seems to be discussing her feelings towards her own experiences, for example being an American living in a small Devon village. The makes a reference to sheep in stanza three. I believe this is a metaphor for English people, “The black slots of their pupils take me in”. This gives a very negative impression about the English. Making them seem very judgemental, she believes she is constantly been looked at for being different and people will straight away see her in a negative light. She also criticises the English social culture describing them as “all wig curls and yellow teeth”. This gives the impression that she is very much alone in the world, she feels she cannot make friends because there is instantly a negative opinion of her. She sees herself as out case. She doesn’t fit in.

The land scape has a huge role in this poem. Silvia is being tempted by it to just lie down and die. She is

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