Spinster Essay -- Commentary on Spinster By Sylvia Plath

This poem is a compilation of Sylvia Plath’s innermost feelings of the time. This can be justly said, as “Spinster” was written in the same year that the poet married.

A spinster, by definition, is a woman past the usual marrying age or considered unlikely to marry because she lacks the qualities men desire in their partners. One could characterize the spinster as an ‘old maid’, a woman doomed to loneliness by chance and prejudices. The girl who is the focus and protagonist of Sylvia Plath’s “Spinster” is not given to expressions of joy and mirth, nor to enjoying nature during the blossoming season that the poem is set in. We can see that in fact, “this particular girl” (1) appreciates nothing about the aspects of the world commonly associated with life and happiness. This “particular girl” is not undesirable by society’s quintessential standards as she is not sinfully ugly, however she does isolate herself by shunning the norms of societal courtship. She does express displeasure with the onerous enthusiasms of spring and her company. In reality, she longs for the dignity and cold order that comes from winter and solitude. Love in essence is effervescent, ne

While the word choice itself provides the reader with strong clues into the meaning of the poem, it is the flow and sound of the spoken words that solidify the arguments of the speaker. The girls differing opinions of the two contrasted seasons are made apparent by the disparate use of rhyme and rhythm. In the stanzas describing the girl’s observations of spring, there is no discernable constant meter, and the sparse rhythm that does exist is off-rhyme. In the first stanza, for example, when the initial mood of the walk with the suitor is set the lines do not flow smoothly into one another. The first line does establish a somewhat regular rhythm, but it then goes on to be abandoned for another in the second line, and then is completely lost in the last two. The last line is especially cacophonous, (harsh-sounding) requiring two distinct pauses at the commas. Additionally, the relative pitches of the vowel sounds fluctuate from word to word, creating disharmony as one reads such sections. The rhyme scheme in these lines is a-b-c-b, where "walk" and "struck" serve as off-rhymes because of the similar consonant sound at the end of each word. "Suitor" similarly goes on to match with "litter", although somewhat less concretely. In other parts of the poem, this discord is supplemented by consecutively stressed syllables, or spondee (e.g., "gait stray uneven" (9), "rank wilderness" (10) ), that renders the lines as difficult to say as it is for the girl to enjoy the spring. These patterns of off-rhyme and difficult mish-mashed meters prevail wherever the speaker is elaborating on the disorganized nature of spring, lending rhythmic credence to the girl's viewpoint. Conversely, at each instance that the speaker lauds the pleasantly ordered winter season, the rhythm falls into a more easily spoken, regular meter. The first mention of winter - "How she longed for winter then!" (13) - is a consistent trochee, and the concluding stanza celebrating the girl's seclusion is near totally iambic:

The protagonist of “Spinster” is a girl who rejects the offering of the world and her “latest suitor” (3). This suitor, seeking her affections, takes her on an attempt at a romantic hike through a wood. However, t

Some topics in this essay:
John Gambert, Sylvia Plath, Sylvia Plath’s, plath’s “spinster”, sylvia plath’s, barb check, sylvia plath’s “spinster”, longed winter, curse fist threat, curse fist, absent winter, fist threat, vowel sounds, irregular babel, describing girl’s,