Morning Song Poem

"Morning Song" is a poem, which expresses the range of emotions which Plath experienced during motherhood. It is a moving poem that depicts becoming a new mother. She uses many language features throughout the poem to show how the arrival of the baby has affected her life. The poem begins with a simple simile which builds a foundation for the reader, to let them know what the poem is about. The first image of the conception of the baby reveals Plaths insecurity. She feels the baby is part of her life, but feels as if she is a stranger to the child .The mother claims that love has caused the baby's arrival and says, "Love set you going like a fat gold watch." This reveals her desire to own the child who belongs to the father's clan and not to hers. In the second stanza Plath reveals more negative emotions associated with the birth of her child. She writes, "Our voices echo," revealing an abnormal celebration of the birth of her child. Further more, it reveals a sense of resentment towards the baby. Plath compares the child to a "new statue" located in a "draft museum," a place for nonliving things. This suggests the vulnerability of the mother regarding her newborn.

In the third stanza, the speaker makes one direct statement that cuts the bonds of mother and child forever. The speaker claims that the motherly relationship with the new child is no more than that of the cloud and the mirrior-poor as she explains by writing, "Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow

Effacement at the wind's hand." The speaker believes clouds send down rain that form pools of water and those pools in turn reflect the clouds while at the same time the wind is driving the clouds away. Despirte all the harsh thoughts and comparisons of the child in the previous stanzas, in the fourth stanza, the speaker reveals that she is kept awake all night listeing to the the breathing infant. As the "flat pink roses" entertain the flickering "moth-breath," the mother hears the sounds of the baby's breathing. And as she listens, she also becomes aware of the sound of silence, which she calls "a far sea." Here, Plath reveals that although the new born brings anxiety to her life, she also has received a new found joy from the child.

In the final analysis, Plath dramatizes the mother's actions as soon as she hears the baby cry. As soon as she hears the baby cries, she gets out of bed to help the baby. The speaker describes herself as "cow-heavy and floral/ In my Victorian nightgown." She still feels heavy and weak from giving birth. In the final image of the poem, the mother sits nursing the baby while watching night turn to day and listens to the baby as it begins to speak as balloons rise into the air. This leaves the reader with a "handful of notes" from the newborn and a sense of happiness for the new mother.

...