The speaker is a mirror. “Ariel” Summary and Analysis by Sylvia Plath October 26, 2016 by Pritesh Chakraborty The poem was written on October 27, 1962, shortly before her death. Physical beauty fades with time: this is inevitable. “Ariel” by Sylvia Plath is the title poem of her volume of poetry, “Ariel,” published after her death.

The speaker is only able to see flashes of the horse’s movements as she is attempting to cling onto the neck. "Ariel" translates to "lion of God" from Hebrew, and Plath refers to herself as "God's lioness" in line 4.

Critical Analysis of “Ariel”, shows that like other poems of Sylvia Plath it is highly autobiographical, psychological and confessional poem.

It is considered one of Plath's most accomplished and enigmatic poems, for it explores far more than a simple daybreak ride. We get all three colours in ‘Ariel’, with the blackness of the night (and those blackberries, even likened to the eye of a black person), the whiteness of Plath herself as a Lady Godiva figure, and the redness of the sunrise in the poem’s final image.

In fact, it is the most ambiguous and complex poem of Sylvia Plath. As she rides, the narrator observes black berries \"cast[ing] dark hooks,\" and a profusion of shadows. Osborne, Kristen. She has not chosen to embark on this chaotic and somewhat terrifying ride on top of Ariel, she is being “Haul[ed],” forced along without a choice. What's your thoughts? In the first tercet of the poem the reader is given a very brief description of the situation in which the speaker has found herself. He considers the rhyming scheme of the last line –"Eye, the cauldron of morning" – and sees it as tying together the personal activity of riding a horse, the communal connotations of the Hebrew race and its suffering, and the cauldron, which is a way to "[mix] all of the foregoing elements together into a kind of melting pot of emotion, history, and personal involvement." In regards to the biblical allusion of Jerusalem, it is no doubt a product of Plath's fascination – nay, obsession – with Judaism and the Jews. There is \"something else\" that forcefully pulls her through the air as she rides, its strength described as thighs, hair, and her heels, which flake from the force of the ride. The reader receives a few additional details at the end of the poem as the speaker mentions, “The child’s cry.” Thus far there have been no other characters in this drama, so one must consider the importance of this child, mentioned in such an prime spot in the narrative. The speaker can see a new, intense, burning light at the end of her tunnel and she is heading straight for it.

Once more the speaker turns the reader’s attention to the horse and describes how she is being carried along atop. Copyright © 1999 - 2020 GradeSaver LLC. The two of them, rider and horse are merging. ‘Ariel’ was the name of a horse that Plath was fond of riding when she lived down in Devon with her husband, Ted Hughes.