Quoting and Linking Images (Assignment 1)

Sylvia Plath “Lady Lazarus”
“Out of the ash/I rise with my red hair/And I eat men like air”

Plath's imagery encompasses several mythological characters and texts. A phoenix, with origins in Egyptian mythology, was often said to possess red plumage and rise from the ashes of death. Plath's failed attempts at suicide parallel the fate of the phoenix, and serve to closely link the two images. Similarly, in Greek mythology, sirens were also known for their red hair. Using their irresistible songs, they lured many a sea-farer to their destruction. In this context, Plath's imagery recalls several ancient Greek myths, such as the adventures of Jason and the Argonauts. Finally, Plath's imagery can also be linked to harpies. Like sirens, they were often assumed to be harbingers of destruction and death in Greek mythology. Plath's desire to "eat men like air" produces inevitable comparisons to these creatures of myth, and it is perhaps the images' exotic nature that drew me to these particular lines in "Lady Lazarus".

Nellie Wong “When I Was Growing Up”
“when I was growing up, I read magazines and saw movies, blonde movie stars, white skin,sensuous lips and to be elevated, to become a woman, a desirable woman, I began to wear imaginary pale skin”

I connected the images in Wong's poem to F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby". The character Daisy Buchanan says of her young daughter, "I hope she'll be a fool - that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool....You see, I think everything's terrible anyhow....And I know.” Daisy's wish for her daughter to be a fool (in order to fit into high society) parallels Wong's desire to be considered a white American girl. Further, Daisy Buchanan and Nellie Wong are both in love with a materialistic ideal. In its purest form, an ideal that only a select few can ever realize. Wong's poem has significant emotional relevance because they force all of us to accept our limitations, and the things we cannot change.

Sojourner Truth “Ain’t I A Woman?”
“I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me!”

Reading these lines, I was impacted not only by their grief and helplessness, but also by a feeling of profound hope that the fate of women would ultimately improve. Charles W. Chestnut's "The Wife of His Youth", a 19th century short story, echoes similar sentiments. In the story, a husband and wife are reunited during Reconstruction, after being sold seperately at a slave auction. Several decades have passed, in which his wife constantly searched for their lost family, before arriving at his doorstep. Had his wife given up hope of ever seeing her family again, they certainly would never have been reunited. Overcome with grief over the death of their children, the helplessness the husband and wife feel is somewhat softened by the hope that reunited them.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper”
“I often wonder if I could see her out of all the windows at once. But, turn as fast as I can, I can only see out of one at one time. And though I always see her, she may be able to creep faster than I can turn! I have watched her sometimes away off in the open country, creeping as fast as a cloud shadow in a high wind.”

This scene from Gilman's famous short story recalls images from another nineteenth century short story, by Edgar Allen Poe. In William Wilson, a young man is confronted with an individual who may or may not be his doppelganger. "Years flew, while I experienced no relief. Villain! -- at Rome, with how untimely, yet with how spectral an officiousness, stepped he in between me and my ambition! At Vienna, too -- at Berlin -- and at Moscow! Where, in truth, had I not bitter cause to curse him within my heart? From his inscrutable tyranny did I at length flee, panic-stricken, as from a pestilence; and to the very ends of the earth I fled in vain. And again, and again, in secret communion with my own spirit, would I demand the questions "Who is he? -- whence came he? -- and what are his objects?" But no answer was there found."

The protagonist is eventually driven to insanity, while readers are left doubting his mental stability in the first place. The scenes of hysteria and confusion are closely linked to Gilman's protagonist. Readers are left to question whether she was driven insane by a mysterious woman in the wallpaper, or whether her insanity was due to her isolation from society. The images presented in this passage fascinated me because of their surreal quality, and their ability to disarm readers with their apparent serenity.

Lucille Clifton “The Thirty-Eighth Year”
“I have taken the bones you hardened/and built daughters/and they blossom and promise fruit/like afrikan trees”

These images are closely linked to Biblical passages referring to fruit. In the Bible, followers of Jesus are often told to be fruitful and multiply. Several parables use dying fruit as a metaphor for a lack of faith, whereas blossoming fuit is a sign of a healthy faith. The same is often true of the Bible's use of trees - strong, healthy trees are a sign of divinity, whereas dying trees signify neglect and death. Clifton's imagery stood out to me, in part, because of my familiarity with Biblical texts. They also seemed to extend a possible metaphor throughout the poem: Christ's death and eventual resurrection. Clifton's daughters can perhaps be seen as a final resurrection of the hardships she and her mother endured.