The Elm Speaks Essay, Research Paper

Sylvia Plath’s “The Elm Speaks”

Dutch elm disease is one of the most devastating shade tree

diseases the earth has ever seen. It is a wilt disease with an

extremely high fatality rate. The disease is characterized by

gradual yellowing of the leaves and defoliation. This is caused

be a fungus which is transmitted from diseased trees to healthy

trees by insects known as bark beetles. In the 1962 villanelle

“The Elm Speaks” confessionalist Sylvia Plath compares her

depressed emotional state with Dutch elm disease, which killed

millions of Elm trees around the world. In the fourteen stanza

poem written only one year before her suicide, a bitter Plath

cries out with pain. The theme of depression originates from the

loss of love in her marriage to Ted Hughes. The poem is

extremely rich in metaphorical language from beginning to end.

In many ways the poem is designed to fit the definition of a

villanelle. “The Elm Speaks” is a free verse poem with chaotic

meter.

While living in London, Sylvia Plath had a massive elm tree

in front of he house that became the subject of this poem. In

the first stanza, she mentions her “great tap root,” which is the

very bottom of the elm’s roots. This line symbolizes that she

has reached the very bottom of her depression. She describes her

depression further in stanza two as a “sea of dissatisfactions,”

“or the voice of nothing” meaning it is raging inside of her.

At the same time she has an empty feeling which is driving her

mad. Afterwards, in stanza three, she compares love to a shadow,

a dark reflection of someone which is not real and can not be

touched. “Till your head is a stone, you pillow a little turf”

creates the image of a grave stone in stanza four. “The sounds

of poisons” in stanza five refers to what Hughes, her husband,

has done to her and how it burns inside of her killing her like

“arsenic”. In stanza six she expresses that she has been through

a lot, but she has always gotten through it. In stanza seven,

however, she admits that she has broken down and can not and will

not take her pain anymore. Next, in stanza eight she describes

the moon, which is normally calming, as merciless, meaning that

even the few things in life she used enjoy are now driving her

insane. Similarly, in stanza nine, she talks about dreams and

how they “possess and endow” her. In other words she feels as if

she is trapped inside an ongoing nightmare. In the tenth stanza

she confesses that she is holding everything in and that nightly

it “flaps out” which means she cries herself to sleep. She is

terrified of her depression and its effects on her, which she

admits in stanza eleven. Next, in stanza twelve she portrays the

“faces of love” as “pale irretrievable” saying that one can

never find love, it is out of reach. For the second time in the

poem, in stanza thirteen, she admits that she can not take the

pain she is suffering anymore. Finally in the last stanza, she

uses sexual imagery that for the most part states, the fact that

they got together has killed her.

The later years of Plath’s life, when she wrote “The Elm

Speaks”, were very tragic. She suffered from a vast number of

mental illnesses, including being bipolar or manic depressive.

Her moods were constantly up and down, one minute happy the next

sad. Just one year before she wrote this poem she suffered

through her second miscarriage, which was shortly followed by an

appendectomy. Through all of this her husband Ted Hughes abused

her both mentally and physically, driving her deeper into her

depression. During these difficult years she wrote Ariel, a

volume of poetry mainly concerning subjects such as injury,

victimization, parasitism, alienation, brutality, war,

cannibalism, death in all forms, torture, murder, suicide, mental

illness, and anger. Only one week after Ariel was completed she

viciously committed suicide by putting her head in the oven after

making her children breakfast on the morning of February

eleventh, 1963. In her poetry it is obvious that suicide was

something she had been considering for a long time, becoming an

obsession or even an addiction.

Throughout “The Elm Speaks” Plath generates a basic them of

depression. She presents herself as being the victim of a

horrible love relationship that has ruined her. She uses many

different techniques to help create her theme. The first, and

most obvious, is her word choice. She uses words such as fear,

madness, poisons, arsenic, shriek, hiss, and kill. These keep

the reader unsettled. The second is her intensely powerful

concluding line, “That kill, that kill, that kill.” This helps

to establish theme because it is the very last thing the reader

reads, therefore it withholds in the mind. Lastly, throughout

the poem she makes undefined references to suicide or death. The

first, in line eleven, “Till your head is a stone, your pillow a

little turf” creates an image of a grave. Later, in stanza five,

“the sounds of poisons” and “arsenic” give the reader the idea of

both murder and suicide. Finally, the first line of stanza

thirteen, “I am incapable of more knowledge” can be interpreted

that she can not take her life anymore. This gives the reader

the impression that she may be considering suicide. Because of

these things, the themes of depression and fury are wonderfully

captured giving the reader a good sense of Plath’s anger.

The entire poem is filled with elaborate metaphorical

language. The most important is the metaphor of the elm tree. A

strong, beautiful tree, suddenly killed by Dutch elm disease,

which began to spread wildly in London during the early 1960’s.

In this metaphor Plath, the strong elm tree, dies in London in

1963, is internally killed by Hughes, the Dutch elm disease. A

smaller metaphor, in stanza three, uses a horse, which stands for

manliness, or Hughes, and hooves running away, or Hughes leaving

her. Also, in stanzas six and seven she gives the image of a

storm which is a metaphor for the anger toward Hughes which is

storming inside of her. Later, in stanza ten she is “inhabited

by a cry”, the cry signifies the her need for love. Afterwards,

in stanza eleven the “dark thing” she is afraid of represents the

need for love she feels inside. Lastly, the “knowledge” she has

become “incapable of” in stanza thirteen symbolizes that she can

no longer stand the pain she has learned to accept. The

metaphors Plath uses throughout the poem help to create a clear

image of the hurt she feels within.

“The Elm Speaks” fits many of the characteristics of a

villanelle. A villanelle is a type of poem having only two

strategically placed inner rhymes. This poem has one at the

beginning and one at the end. The first are fear and hear in the

third and fourth line, and the second will and kill are in lines

forty-one and forty-two. When the words she chose are put

together; fear, hear, will, and kill, they generate the idea that

the fear you are hearing in her will kill her. This makes it

clear that they are very carefully chosen and placed. Also,

villanelle stanzas are always tercets, which is true throughout

this poem. Finally, in most villanelles, the first and third

line in each stanza have the same number of syllables. In “The

Elm Speaks” this is only true in three of the stanzas. First, in

stanza seven they each have eleven syllables. Second, in stanza

thirteen, each consists of ten syllables. At the end, in the

fourteenth stanza each line contains only six syllables.

The meter in the poem from the first line to the last is

completely chaotic, which can be seen in the following:

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root.

It is what you fear.

I do not fear it; I have been there.

Is it the sea you hear in me.

Its dissatisfactions?

Or the voice of nothing that was your madness?

Love is a shadow.

How you lie and cry after it!

Listen. These are its hooves. It has gone off, like a horse.

All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,

Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,

Echoing, echoing.

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?

This is rain now, its big hush.

And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.

Scorched to the root,

My red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires.

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.

A wind of such violence.

Will tolerate no bystanding; I must shriek

The moon, also, is merciless; she would drag me

Cruelly, being barren.

Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

I let her go. I let her go.

Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.

How your bad dreams possess and endow me!

I am inhabited by a cry.

Nightly it flaps out,

Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing

That sleeps in me;

All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.

Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievable?

Is it for such I agitate my heart?

I am incapable of more knowledge.

What is this, this face

So murderous in its strangle of branches?

Its snaky acids hiss.

It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults

That kill, that kill, that kill.

The chaos in the meter may signify the disruption she is feeling

within herself.

“The Elm Speaks” is a free verse poem having very little

rhyme, consisting of many assonance and consonance. The only

rhyme throughout the poem, as stated before, are the two inner

rhymes, fear, hear, will, and kill. From beginning to end, the

poem contains massive amounts of assonance. The most obvious are

the O’s. Each stanza consists of a least seven or eight O’s

including the many sets of double O’s. Also, E’s are very common

in each stanza, containing as many as 7 E’s. The most common

consonance are the many N’s and S’s. Each stanza has an average

of as many as eight S’s and N’s. Other than these few patterns,

the poem is a completely free verse poem.

In conclusion, Plath masterfully expresses her feeling of

hurt, do to the painfully hard years she was struggling through.

Because of this, her themes of depression and anger jump out at

the reader. Also, the beautifully written metaphorical language

helps to establish the theme. Many of the traits in this free

verse poem make it a villanelle. In the fourteen stanza poem

“The Elm Speaks” Sylvia Plath wonderfully achieves her comparison

with the elm tree, which also suffered during the time of Dutch

elm disease, which it eventually died from.

“The Elm Speaks”

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root.

It is what you fear.

I do not fear it; I have been there.

Is it the sea you hear in me.

Its dissatisfactions?

Or the voice of nothing that was your madness?

Love is a shadow.

How you lie and cry after it!

Listen. These are its hooves. It has gone off, like a horse.

All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,

Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,

Echoing, echoing.

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?

This is rain now, its big hush.

And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.

Scorched to the root,

My red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires.

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.

A wind of such violence.

Will tolerate no bystanding; I must shriek

The moon, also, is merciless; she would drag me

Cruelly, being barren.

Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

I let her go. I let her go.

Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.

How your bad dreams possess and endow me!

I am inhabited by a cry.

Nightly it flaps out,

Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing

That sleeps in me;

All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.

Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievable?

Is it for such I agitate my heart?

I am incapable of more knowledge.

What is this, this face

So murderous in its strangle of branches?

Its snaky acids hiss.

It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults

That kill, that kill, that kill.

SYLVIA PLATH’S “THE ELM SPEAKS”

TAMMY SHEA

PERIOD 3

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