The Colossus by Sylvia Plath Summary, Analysis, Review, Themes 

Thanks for coming in strong with the Helios background, that provides an interesting way of reading the poem. I want to reread with your comments in mind, including your comments about Plath writing the poem now as she approaches the age of her father's death. In my initial reading, I didn't attribute the fall of the speaker's colossus to be death alone. That the speaker's father had a fall in conduct or some sort of fall from grace before then and then death is the final fall. So for the lightning line, I took that as the speaker saying about their ruined relationship that it would take more than a lightning-stroke (one-off sudden event like death) to create such a ruin. I don't know what relationship Plath has with her father before her passing so maybe this wouldn't fit with her biography. But I'm torn on reading Plath strictly against her biography. One the one hand, events in her real life do seem to influence her work and since her work requires a certain amount of decryption, it's a useful tool. On the other hand, she does write poems from outside her own experience ("Three Women" comes to immediate mind as it's obvious those can't be her experiences) and how much of her poetry has a meaning/interesting reading apart from her own experience that we're sort of shoe-horning into her biography makes me wonder what levels of meanings we miss from that strict adherence. As far as her motive for writing the poem now, for me that answer was provided by these lines: "Thirty years now I have labored/ to dredge the silt from your throat./ I am none the wiser." "my hours are married to shadow./ no longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel/on the blank stones of the landing" I took this as that she feels she's stuck in this relationship (she was born into a heterosexually-headed nuclear family household, so she only has one dad), she doesn't expect or remember them as a person, but this fall from grace and death's impact on her development is something she can't get out of and there's no sort of silver lining or positive impact she's been able to mine from it even after 30 years. And I could see someone, years and years after a toxic parent's passing, waking up one day tired of that fact and wanting to write a poem about it. Anyway, just discovered your content today. Thanks for making it and for putting it on a site without a comment character limit so I can ramble on about all of it.

This is one of those poems that I had to rely on an analysis online because I just don't get it. Your analysis was much more insightful than the two breakdowns I found online. I'm not much for postmodernist poetry.

I'm watching it as I'm festing❤️.

Ye sometimes I feel like my parents look exactly the same but when I really look back they look different

I watched her movie. Also Poets and Vision series. Massachusetts born. Two kids. Suicide at age 30. I haven’t read her in a decade or so. I’m inspired again !

Could you do a review for Moby-Dick? It’s my favourite novel and I’d be interested to hear your insights.

You don't look 36 I thought u were 25