Spinster Essay -- Literary Analysis, Sylvia Plath

In the poem â€Å"Spinster† by Sylvia Plath, a girl and her lover take a walk through the woods on a spring day. As they are walking, the lover attempts to make romantic gestures towards the girl, which frightens her. The girl’s physical withdrawal from spring and her act of embracing winter is a metaphor for her fear of love and longing for the predictability and control that is not found in love. While on their walk through the woods, the disorganization that the girl feels emphasizes the girl’s discomfort in embracing unpredictable feelings such as love. The speaker’s choice to begin the poem with the word â€Å"now† implies that this scene of the girl walking with a lover in the woods is not new and it has been seen before (1). The feelings of the girl throughout the poem are reoccurring ones and not just ones of this particular scene. The repetition of her actions further highlights the depth of her fear of love because she is so terrified by the idea of love that she cannot overcome her fear. The description of the girl as â€Å"particular† reveals the speaker’s critical tone as the word describes her as picky and peculiar (1). This foreshadows that the girl is unlike others in her actions. The speaker includes that the walk is occurring in â€Å"April† in order to illustrate that the time they are taking the walk is ideal (2). I nstead of seeing the setting of April as the perfect time to walk, the girl becomes â€Å"struck/By the bird’s irregular babel and the leaves’ litter† (4-6). The girl is irritated by all of the disorganization that is present in spring and love. The girl is unable to control the sound of the birds or the growth of the plants. Nature, like love, happens on its own. This reflects how she feels about love because she is also ... ...self (29-30). The word â€Å"love[‘s]† ability to stand alone on its own line expresses the great threat that love has to the girl. The other words that describe the threats of the man are harsh but grouped together. Love is such a great threat that it carries the weight of all of those threats combined by consuming an entire line. This again enforces the girl’s fear of love, as she believes it has the ability to completely ruin her. The girl’s fear of love causes her to long for control. The title of this poem, â€Å"Spinster,† highlights the speaker’s highly critical tone of the girl. While the girl may not be an old lonely woman yet, the continuation of her actions of withdrawal will cause her to be alone forever. The metaphor used in this poem as spring representing love and winter representing control is perfect because spring is variable while winter is monotonous.