Sylvia Plath's "Tulips" by Suzanne Rudolph

Comment

2024-04-04 13:41:25 UTC

It seems as though Plath is almost frustrated with the positivity that the flowers evoke (misunderstood?)

“I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted

To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty”

(Vanessa)

Tulips- Amy

2024-04-04 13:42:58 UTC

“I didn’t want any flowers..lie…empty”

The tulips “weigh(her) down”

This shows that she wants to die and pass away with nothing. She just wants to end it with nothing else to live for. However, beautiful things in nature, like tulips keep her there and can make life worth living.

Tulips: Kenz

2024-04-04 13:43:02 UTC

“A dozen red leaf sinkers round my neck.”

This quote struck me because the tulips are a sign of life, but Plath sees them as a disturbance to her peace. It’s as if the life of the tulips is killing the life inside of her.

Tulips Line - Charlie

2024-04-04 13:43:11 UTC

“It is what the dead close one, finally; I imagine then. Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet.” The religious imagery compounded with the speaker’s thoughts on the peace that comes with death. Moreover, the beauty of the Eucharist as a symbol for unity with God, also ties into the fact that death is also a bridge between life and God.

Tulips comment

2024-04-04 13:43:30 UTC

“I have no Face, I have wanted to efface myself. The vivid tulips eat my Oxygen” - Liv Krempa,

I thought this quote was important because it represents the pains of the world weighing on her as walks through life and how she wishes to be in the peacefulness of death.

Tulips- Lauren

2024-04-04 13:43:37 UTC

“And I have no face, I wanted to efface myself” stuck out to me because it is a very dark line mentioning how she’d rather be dead than deal with this pain in the hospital bed. She wants to erase her existence and take away this consuming feeling of nothingness.

2024-04-04 13:43:40 UTC

The line “They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations”, stands out to me because as the reader Plath describes when you are put to sleep/not awake, all of your feelings and emotions do not join you. All of your problems disappear when taken from life. Plath romanticizes this in a unique approach.

Emilie

2024-04-04 13:44:07 UTC

“I am sick of baggage — my Patent leather overnight case…My husband and child smiling out of the family photo; their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.”

This implies a sense of guilt, and almost pain that she associates with them. This aggressive and invasive connotation of “hooks” reveals that these supposed loved ones are in fact a burden to her, rather than a source of comfort. The oxymoronic nature of “smiling hooks'' juxtaposes the ideas of happiness and pain, which mirrors the conflict in the speaker’s mind.

Jake- “I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses And my history to the anesthetist and my body to the surgeons”

2024-04-04 13:44:38 UTC

I chose this because it shows that the speaker is no longer at their own will, and is not physically in control. This show the speaker feels trapped and may provide insight as to why the speaker is so irritated by the stark contrast between the tulips and the white walls and environment. This also shows that the speaker feels insignificant from not being in control of their own will.

Ava

2024-04-04 13:44:44 UTC

“I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat stubbornly hanging on to my name and address. They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations.” I found this line disturbing. It sheds light on the nature of her medical treatment (or at least how it felt to her as a patient)— though her world was painful and difficult to navigate at times, it was hers. But now, through her treatment, she felt as though she lost herself. It was as if the pain defined her, and without pain she had no name or address. I also found it interesting that she wrote this line at 30, likely mere months before her suicide.

2024-04-04 13:45:42 UTC

She has given everything she has to this hospital. She feels she has nothing left to her but this and is minimized to only her name and a body.

“I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions. I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurse and my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons”

(Cora)