Sylvia Plath uses startling imagery whe

‘Sylvia Plath uses startling imagery when writing about landscape’
I agree with this statement to a large extent. Sylvia Plath uses startling imagery to portray her heightened emotions using the nature around her to create her poems. Plath’s poems are mainly focused around the theme of death and depression. In Sylvia Plath’s poems, the rhythm is often non-up beat and uneven. This forms a more natural and vivid image of the nature and landscape around her. In addition, Plath’s use of rhythm and tone is harsh and heavy, which captures the sombre and depressed atmosphere of the landscape and also her state of mind. Moreover, the tone Plath uses is often has a mournful sound to it which contrasts with the harshness straight after, this is evident in her poem Finisterre in the first stanza where she says ‘Cramped on nothing. Black’ ‘Admonitory cliffs, and the sea exploding’. I think the tone of these lines illustrates the waves of the sea crashing into rocks. Sylvia Plath’s poems are mainly focused around the theme of death and her depressive thoughts. In both poems ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Finisterre’, Plath uses the imagery around her to describe her isolation which could perhaps trigger her depression. In the poem ‘Wuthering Heights’ Plath describes the landscape saying ‘the horizons ring me like faggots’- she creates an aural image of ringing, which enhances the solitude Plath feels. This simile could perhaps be a personification of her future? It could suggest that Plath is being bombarded with thoughts about her future that she is uncertain of. Moreover, in her poem ‘Finisterre’, her isolation is apparent as she says ‘other rocks hide their grudges under the water’ which could imply that her (and the soldiers) are not able to speak out as they are trapped underneath the water. This could be a personification of her emotions being locked up deep within and keeping her sadness inside. The theme of hopelessness