Mental illness haunts
many people. Sylvia Plath lived a
troubled life, ending in suicide. Her poem, "Metaphors," is of the
Confessional sub-genre of poetry. Pieces of her troubled life come through in
all her confessional poems, including this one. While it is difficult to figure
out for some, its message is one of strong social commentary.
Stevie Smith's poem, "Not Waving But Drowning," is as troubled as Plath's life. The image here is terrifying. Put yourself in the poem. Become that person who cannot swim. Call out for help. Watch everyone on shore wave back at you as your lungs fill up with water. This is heavy stuff.
Stevie Smith's poem, "Not Waving But Drowning," is as troubled as Plath's life. The image here is terrifying. Put yourself in the poem. Become that person who cannot swim. Call out for help. Watch everyone on shore wave back at you as your lungs fill up with water. This is heavy stuff.
Charles Alitieri’s “Modernist Realism and Lowell's Confessional Style” helps
define this subgenre. Here’s how to find it: Altieri,
Charles. "Modernist Realism and Lowell's Confessional Style." Modernism
Revisited: Transgressing Boundaries and Strategies of Renewal in American
Poetry. Ed. Viorica Patea and Paul Scott Derrick. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007.
207-223. Rpt. in Poetry Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 132. Detroit:
Gale, 2012. Literature Resource Center. Web. 31 Dec. 2012.
DO NOW: Please click on Comments to offer ideas about tone
and social commentary. Compare either or
both poems to a movie, television show, book, or song. Sign your comments with your first name and last initial.
Stevie Smith's poem, "Not waving but drowning" and Charles Aliteri's "Modernist Realism and Lowells Confessional Style" create a very somber tone. This tone is created with sad and terrifying images for the reader. This type of poetry is different from the mainstream poetry. This gives a feeling of darkness that is not typically seen. Most poets create an upbeat tone not typically one of despair. This is very similar to Spiderman 3. In the beginning the typical Peter Parker is seen. Midway through Peter is consumed by symbiote killing his old self. It is a dynamic change in the story very similar to the dynamic change these poems bring to the genre.
ReplyDelete-Doug C.
Sylvia Plath poem "Metaphors" was interesting to me though I did not understand it at first, but then I ended up breaking it to pieces. The poems tone is mixed its mixed emotions practically. The poem speaks about women-hood, pregnancies, and what to expect when they're expecting. This poem is similar to a television show called The Secret Life of the American Teenager and its about a teen girl who is pregnant and clearly does not know what to expect. - Vanessa G
ReplyDeleteIn “Not Waving But Drowning” by Stevie Smith the tone is sad and depressing because the people on the shore think that the narrator is waving at them, when in reality he is drowning. When the narrator dies no one realized that the waving was him trying to get help. This can be related to Boo Radley in “Too Kill a Mockingbird” because Boo was ostracized from society because he was misunderstood.
ReplyDeleteDana N
I thought Sylvia Plath's poem was confusing but reading it again made me realize it's about pregnancy. It's actually a pretty ingenious poem and it isn't surprising that it's from Plath. The poem makes me think of "That 70's Show" when Kelso gets a random girl, Brooke, pregnant at a concert and then goes through it with her. In that time, neither know what they're doing or what to expect but through it all they both mature and become great parents.
ReplyDeleteJake G.
The poem "Not Waving But Drowning" brings a very ominous tone and I thought of it as a story about a person that was very depressed but did not tell anyone. They were not waving and showing anyone that they were drowning in their depression so no one could help them and thus they ended up dying. This reminds me of the novel Catcher In the Rye because the main character was very depressed but no one helped, instead they contributed to his depression.
ReplyDelete-Tyler P
The poem "Now Waving but Drowning" was a emotional poem. Sorrow is very much so present in this poem.The poems tone is sorrow, I know this because it deals with death and the teller expresses her feelings. The poem also contains a lot of metaphors. The poem can be very hard to understand, I recommend that you read it more than once. George P.
ReplyDeletelkhjkl
ReplyDeleteThe poem Metaphors by Sylvia Path was very interesting. The first line of it says "I'm a riddle in nine syllables," i figured out that there were 9 lines in the poem. And 9 syllables in each line. After reading it a couple of times i figured out that there was something inside of her. I believe she is pregnant. she also kept commenting on how she is larger. The tone of "Not Waving But Drowning" was more sad and gloomy. I think it had to do with a depressed person not fitting in or not being herself because she is afraid of how she will be judged. The only movie that reminded me of this was Mean Girls because the main character in that movie is not her true self because she is afraid of how she will be treated. -Matt.H
ReplyDeleteI had to read Sylvia Plath's poem a few times because i did not understand it at first. After reading it i realized that it is about pregnancy and not being sure what to do. This poem hits lose to home for me because I know people who got pregnant and they didn't know what they should do or expect.
ReplyDeleteKhadijah D.
The poem "Not Waving But Drowning" reminds me of the film Titanic when Rose talks about how she screaming at the top of her lungs in a crowded room and no one seems to notice. The narrator is the drowning metaphor to show that he was crying for help but no one noticed because he seemed to not be giving off signs. In "Metaphors" the message is confusing so I am unable to figure out what she I saying however I did notice a pattern of each line contain exactly nine syllables. Which is ironic because she states that in the beginning of the poem.
ReplyDeleteJulianna C.
After reading “Metaphors” by Sylvia Plath a few times, I still didn’t get any understanding of the poem. It left me confused; could be because I was never one to understand metaphors. I find that some metaphors make more sense than others. “Not Waving but drowning” by Stevie Smith makes sense and is very relative to human life. Reading this poem made me think of someone who’s always calling for help but no one takes them seriously to help them.
ReplyDelete-Anthony C.
"Metaphors" by Sylvia Plath was very confusing to me. I read it several times and still did not understand what she was referring to. I enjoyed "Not Waving But Drowning" not only because it was much easier to understand but because after reading it made me feel so sorry for the man. That made me want to look more deeply into the poem.
ReplyDelete-Megan S.
It's a lot difficult to know the meaning of "Metaphors" by Sylvia Plath. However, the image I thought of is a kind of the obligation of pregnancy because of "a cow in calf" and some images which remind of pregnancy like "This loaf's big with its yeasty rising." Also, the author said "means", and it means that the author partly didn't like this socially accepted idea that all women have to give birth to babies. "Not Waving but Drowning" by Stevie Smith shows different life styles of people by using three speakers, I think. Some people don't care about others at all, and marginalized people might have difficulties in communicating with others because the others' attitude. Both of these poems are about how society or people see of think about ones.
ReplyDeleteDonghwan K.
Silvia Path's poem "Metaphors" was a bit difficult for me to understand. I get a sense of sorrow and disappointment from the speakers tone. I also got the idea that the speaker may also be pregnant and possibly struggling with that especially when she says, "I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf" (line 7) and "Boarded the train there's not getting off" (line 9). This poem makes me think of the show on MTV called Teen Mom. It is about young girls stepping into motherhood, and most of them struggle simply because they are not ready for the responsibility of another life.
ReplyDeleteMegan H.
After reading "Metaphors" by Sylvia Plath a couple times I still couldn't understand what it is about. On the other hand "Not Waving but Drowning" was very clear. It is about someone who has anxiety and/or depression. It does feel like drowning because people perceive the signs as nervousness or attention-seeking, but it goes a lot deeper than that. "I was much further out than you thought" is a very profound line because no one bothers to look deeper than what meets the eye. The person is not "waving" because they want attention, they are drowning because they need help.
ReplyDelete-Nicole R.
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ReplyDeleteThe poem "Not Waving But Drowning" has a gloomy tone because it is about a man drowning in the water. The poem uses repetition of the title in the poem. I think this could be a metaphor for people who are troubled but nobody can tell because they don't show it. Just like how this person was calling for help but people thought he was waving. This poem reminded me of the movie American Psycho which is about a man who kills people for fun because he has gone insane. The people in his life cannot tell that he's crazy so they don't try to help or stop him.
ReplyDelete-Matt D
Stevie Smith's poem "Not Waving but Drowning" has a very despairing tone to it. It as if the dead man had no hope when trying to call for help. Besides the poems actually meaning, a man drowning, I thought about "The Boy Who Cried Wolf". The man drowning could be the boy who cried wolf who constantly lied about a serious problem. When the problem actually aroused, no one believed him. This can be expressed when the narrator states that "nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much further out than you thought
ReplyDeleteAnd not waving but drowning." When he says that no one heard him asking for help, I though of people not listening to the man because he cried wolf.
-Jordan C.
While reading Stevie Smiths poem "Not Waving But Drowning" it reminded me a lot of the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. How the man was feeling was very similar to how the main character in Chbosky's novel, Charlie felt. Both people dealing with inner struggles which they do very well hiding on the outside. Sylvia Path's poem was very unique to me. The comparisons she used were something I've never heard before but it was definitely easily portrayed as a dark poem.
ReplyDelete-Christina H
ReplyDeleteThe structure of the poem “Metaphors” by Sylvia Plath gives us a piece of information about the speaker. The poem consists of nine lines, and each line has nine syllables. This refers to nine months of pregnancy, so that tells us that the speaker is a pregnant woman. The tone of the poem is humorous while at the same time expressing an eerie mood. This sadness is shown through the last line of the poem when the speaker says, “Boarded the train there’s no getting off.” What this means is that the pregnant woman in this poem knows that she cannot undo her pregnancy. She feels resentful because she doesn’t even want to have a child or perhaps, she may fear that she may not be ready for a baby. She uses metaphors to make jokes about her weight such as, “an elephant, a ponderous house” but in actuality, she is insecure about her size and regretting getting pregnant.
ReplyDeleteThe poem, “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith has an obvious gloomy and eerie tone. This mood is depressing because as the speaker cries out for help, no one can hear him because he is too far out in the water. It’s almost as if he’s complaining and whining, but if I were drowning I would be desperate and panicky too. However, the poem seems much deeper than a man who is literally drowning. The dead man was always dead in a sense because he was misunderstood and not living a happy life. The people who see him dead don’t believe he has drowned because they say he must have died from the water being too cold. This just proves that his life was helpless because no one would be able to understand or rescue him because no one saw his depression. It is not much of a comparison, but the character in the poem reminds me of Jason from the Friday the 13th series because they are both misunderstood, neglected and died from drowning because of the carelessness of others who didn’t pay attention to them.
- Esther P.
Silvia Path's poem "Metaphors" was about pregnancy. The poem was quite difficult to understand at first but after reading it a couple times I began to understand. Silvia’s metaphors were precise. She was explaining how huge she was feeling during the pregnancy. The tone of the poem wasn’t happy but aggravated or disgusted. I could compare this poem to the movie “35 and Ticking” where the mother in the movie was disgusted because she was a young mother. The mother wasn’t at all mad at her children, just at the fact that she was so young and had to raise children. George P.
ReplyDeleteBoth poems "Metaphors" and "Not Waving But Drowning" are pretty serious and sad sounding poems. At first, the poem "Metaphors" by Sylvia Plath did not sound as if it was setting a serious tone, but with a little research, it turns out its about pregnancy, and with a little more research, it turns out this poem is about the struggles of pregnancy which gives the poem its serious tone. "Not Waving But Drowning" by Stevie Smith already sounds sad by just reading the title of this poem. There was a lot more to this poem than people watching this very happy man drown because the very happy man himself was not even very happy in the first place. All the man wanted was for someone to notice how he really feels behind his fake smiles and no one seemed to noticed to the point where people thought he was waving when he was actually drowning. These poems sort of remind me about a character named "Sad Larry" from the videos by Cyanide and Happiness. Larry is a very depressed man and in each video he is featured in, nothing goes right for him to the point where even his suicide attempts were not successful and he just gets even sadder.
ReplyDeleteDarwin U
The poem "Metaphors" by Sylvia Plath is about her pregnancy. In the first line of the poem it says " I'm a riddle in nine syllables" which makes me believe that the number nine has something to do with this poem. Not only does the first line strongly emphasizes the number nine, but also the poem has nine lines, and nine syllables in every line. So the number nine is very important in this poem because a pregnancy lasts nine months. She also writes how she feels big because she compares herself to an elephant, a house, and a melon. This poem has an eerie and a sad mood because the poet doesn't seem very happy about her pregnancy because in the last line it says “Boarded the train there’s no getting off".
ReplyDelete-Christian G
The tone of both of these poems was depressed. Back in that time period people did not talk about their depressions or anxiety. These poems were an artistic way to describe their real feelings. I can not think of any songs, movies, etc. that relate with these poems.
ReplyDelete-Victoria G.
“Metaphors” by Sylvia Plath is a poem about Pregnancy. Told through a series of Metaphors, Plath's poem comments on the physical and emotional pressures that pregnant women are want to deal with, mainly weight gaining. The last line “boarding the train there's no getting off”, however, clearly is meant to comment on the inevitability of pregnancy, the dread of waiting for the baby to be born. Plath did not choose to mention the possibilities of adoption or abortion, leading the reader to assume they are not viable options for the poem's speaker. To make a comparison, this character differs from the character of Juno in the film “Juno”, a pregnant teenager who decides to give her baby up for adoption, and has to deal with the anxiety's of both that and her pregnancy. -Kyle B
ReplyDeleteMetaphors clearly shows she is suffering from mental illness because she is talking as if she is trapped and there is no way out. In that state of mind it is very hard to look beyond the horizon or see a way out. You can tell this is how she feels when she says"ihave boarded the train there is no getting off". i also believe she is pregnant since there is a lot of symbolism of yeast growing and a baby calf.
ReplyDelete-Louis D
In "Not Waving but Drowning" it is a very dark and gloomy feel to the story. even though he was a happy man he was never happy in the moment and expressing his problems. If allow others to be closer to him I feel that someone would have know the difference between a hi and help wave. I can compare this to the The Weeknd song "Rolling stone". Both the song and the poem have a gloomy feel to to it. They both talk about how no one really knows them.
ReplyDeleteGreg D.
ReplyDelete“Not Waving but Drowning" by Stevie Smith, this poem has a very sad and gloomy tone. The dead man could survive if people understood that he was "waving" for help. However, poeple misunderstood the meaning of his "waving", which leads to the man dead eventually. This poem also represents Stevie Smith's life. "I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowing" (Smith). He is suffering from depression for a long time. People do not understand him, and no one can help him. He feels helpless. Unfortunately, he commited suicide and dead eventually. "Metaphors" by Sylvia Plath, this poem has a bitter and angry tone. Even though she is not ready to have the baby, she has to have the baby.
ReplyDelete---Peng Q
In the poem "Metaphors" by Slyvia Plath, it is clear that the speaker is pregnant. The tone of the poem is surprisingly melancholy and depressing just like Smith's poem "Waving not Drowning". In Plath's poem, the speaker describes her pregnancy as an obligation that takes away from her individuality. She feels as if her pregnancy is taking away her opportunities and giving it to another human being. She obtains no loving feelings towards her baby and thinks her pregnancy is very unappealing. This poem reminds me of some of the people on MTV's Teen Mom. On the show there are some girl's who become upset over the fact of their pregnancy and decisions and decide to satisfy their own selfish needs before their babies. (not all characters)
ReplyDelete- Marisa R
“Not Waving But Drowning” by Stevie Smith has a sad and depressing tone. The people on the shore think that the swimmer is waving at them and larking, as they said he liked to do, when he really is drowning. This can be related to the song "Monster" by Eminem. In the song Eminem is telling a story of how his actions are looked at as crazy when in reality he is simply just trying to live and deal with fame. -Emily Z.
ReplyDeleteStevie Smith's poem "Not Waving but Drowning" and "Metaphors" by Slyvia Plath are very metaphoric like as far as how they are written. Not waving but drowning is more sad and gloomy. While metaphors goes exactly with the title describing a woman being pregnant with it being worded differently. It is sort of like the same mood because she isn't ready to have the baby but she knows its going to happen. Both poems have that real life type of relation to it which makes them more realistic.
ReplyDelete-Omari G