“The Colossus" as a Broken Poem

In this essay, I will analyze the poem “The Colossus” by Silvia Plath. I would argue that “The Colossus” is a poem about Silvia Plath’s father. Or rather the absence of her father. In this poem, Silvia Plath uses the image of the broken Colossus of Rhodes as the broken image she has of her father. Silvia Plath uses mimesis and enjambment as well as symbolism quite effectively in The Colossus and this, therefore is what I would particularly be looking at.

                                                                                                                                                                                   

The Colossus of Rhodes is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Colossus of Rhodes was a gigantic statue of the sun god Helios who stood astride the harbor of Rhodes. Unfortunately, it toppled over due to an earthquake only 54 years after its construction. The remains of the Colossus of Rhodes were admired for hundreds of years after its destruction. I would argue that the colossus is in fact representative of Silvia Plath’s father. The Colossus was a symbol of power to Rhodes and therefore also was a very important part of Rhodes as well as an important part of Rhodes's identity. In the same way, Sylvia Plath’s father likely was a Colossal image in her own life and therefore also played a large part in how she looked at the world. And yet it was destroyed prematurely. Much in the same way that Sylvia Plath’s father died when she was only eight years old. Despite the Colossus’s destruction it still has a massive presence in the minds of the ancient Greeks for quite a long time. We can link this to Sylvia Plath’s life: where she clearly feels that her father is a large influential part of her life. Even though he had only been present for the first eight years of her life.

                                                                                                                                                                                   

The way the poem is constructed is reminiscent of the brokenness of the colossus as well as the narrator's attempt to put it back together again. We can for instance see this in the poem's rhyme scheme. The poem has a broken rhyme scheme. The broken rhyme scheme therefore is memetic of the broken colossus. There are certain lines in the poem that rhyme with each other, but they are few and far between and they rhyme across different stanzas. We can for instance see this in “I crawl like an ant in mourning” (12), which is in the third stanza, and “On the blank stones of the landing.” (30) which is in the sixth stanza and is the very last line of the poem. The fact that there are lines that rhyme in the poem is reminiscent of the narrator’s attempt to reconstruct the Colossus. But the colossus, like the rhyme, does not fit together neatly.

                                                                                                                                                                                   

The odd thing with this particular example is that these two lines could have fitted neatly together if they had been placed next to each other. This is also so reminiscent of the broken colossus whose parts are in the wrong place. Just like these two lines that could have stood next to each other but do not. The lines also would mean something entirely different if one read them in this way. As the poem is written the “I crawl like an ant in mourning” (12) is connected with “Over the weedy acres of your brow.” (13) In this instance the narrator's mourning relates to the father, but if we connect the “I crawl like an ant in mourning” with “On the blank stones of the landing.” we see something entirely different. Now her mourning is no longer connected with her father. Specifically, because of the loss of the word “your” (13) in this line. Because of the loss of the word “your” (13) she now is in fact no longer mourning a person. She rather is mourning “blank stones” (30). The fact that this stanza has no “you” indicates that it is impersonal. She is mourning something she does not truly know. Something that has become so impersonal that one cannot attach a “you” to it seeing as it has been rendered to a mere object in the mind of the narrator. She is mourning something that has no structure to it. I would argue that the “blank stones” (30) are symbolic of her relationship with her father. Seeing as her father died when she was very young one would expect that she did not remember much about him. Because of this the “blank stones” might also be symbolic of the memories of her father. They are blank. Stones that are smooth are smooth because they have been eroded by running water. One can imagine that Sylvia Plath’s memories of her father have been eroded away to such an extent that she is only left with “blank stones” (30) with no detail to their surface. Just like the narrator is left with nothing, but stones with no detail on their surface, Silvia Plath is left, but a vague memory of her father.

                                                                                                                                                                                   

We can also have the same effect in the use of enjambment. Most of the lines in this poem are broken, which again is mimetic of the brokenness of The Colossus. There is not only enjambment within the stanzas of the poem, but even between different stanzas. This enjambment is mimetic of the narrator's attempt to put the colossus back together again. The enjambment glues certain stanzas together just like the narrator who glues certain parts of the colossus together. We can for instance see this in stanzas five and six:

Nights, I squat in the cornucopia
Of your left ear, out of the wind,

Counting the red stars and those of plum-colour.
The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue. (24-27)

 

In this particular example, the enjambment between the two different stanzas is a true enjambement seeing as there is a comma at the end of the last line of stanza five. Although this makes this particularly intriguing. These two stanzas have been lashed together, but not completely. We can still see the mark where they have been separated. This is mimetic of the marks that remain on the colossus even after its different parts have been glued together again. The narrator has made attempts to put The Colossus back together again the parts don’t fit properly anymore.

One could never rebuild the colossus compactly the marks will always be present. Much in the same way that Silvia Plath could try to reconstruct the image of her father, but could never do so completely

                                                                                                                                                                                   

There is something else that is quite interesting about the last two lines of the fifth stanza. The cornucopia is a particularly significant image here. A cornucopia is an image from ancient Greek mythology. Essentially the cornucopia is a goat’s horn filled with an abundance of fruit and vegetables. The cornucopia is a symbol of prosperity and a bountiful harvest. This is an example of ocular syntax. The first stanza in this instance would be read entirely differently had it not been for the second stanza. If we only look at the first line, we would assume that the narrator is in an area of plenty seeing as the narrator is in a cornucopia, but when reading the second line we see that this is in fact not the case. This is because it is only in the second line that we learn that the cornucopia is a metaphor for The Colossus’s ear. An ear cannot give, but rather receive. The ears are one of the sensory organs. Their only fiction is to pick up sounds and then send them on to the brain to be interpreted. They cannot give anything. Thus, meaning that the ear, in this case, is in fact not a giver of plenty, but a receiver of plenty. We can therefore say that the cornucopia image in this case is symbolic of the amount of speech the narrator bestows on the colossus. The narrator bestows an absolute bounty of speech on the colossus just like a cornucopia bestows a bounty of fruit and vegetables. Although the colossus never responds. This may be how Silvia Plath feels about her father. She constantly wants to communicate with him, but he never replies.

                                                                                                                                                                                   

               There are several images in this poem where we can see a sense of failed communication between the narrator and the Colossus. We for instance also see this in stanzas one and two:

 

               Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles

               Proceed from your great lips.

               It’s worse than a barnyard.

 

               Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle,

               Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other. (3-7)

 

In the first stanza, the narrator states the colossus makes animal noises. In the second stanza, the narrator goes further to compare the colossus with an oracle. In ancient Greece, an oracle was thought to possess the ability to communicate with the gods. The oracle was therefore considered to possess knowledge that was unattainable by other mortals. People often went to the oracle for advice in times of need, but the oracle's answers were given in riddles. Meaning that those who received them had to try and understand their hidden meaning when they in fact were nonsensical. In the same way, the colossus’s noises would be considered nonsensical seeing as they are barnyard noises. Later in the poem the Oresteia is mentioned and the image of the colossus with its nonsensical prophesies can be associated with the character Cassandra out of the Oresteia. Cassandra has been blessed with the gift of prophecy, yet at the same time, she is cursed never to be believed. Like Cassandra, the colossus is not able to deliver his prophetic message. It would seem that the narrator tries to confide in the colossus, as could be seen in the image of the cornucopia. The colossus’s response means nothing to the narrator and it therefore cannot help her, in the same way that the oracle could not offer any real help to those who needed it. This plays in nicely with the image of the cornucopia. The colossus does speech, but its speech is unimpeachable. This could be symbolic of Silvia Plath’s inability to communicate with her father.

                                                                                                                                                                                   

The narrator says that the Colossus considers himself as being a “mouthpiece to the dead” (7) This would be quite ironic seeing as this poem could potentially be about Sylvia Plath's dead father. This might be a reflection on what the poem itself might be trying to do as well as what Silvia Plath really wants. This poem thus is an attempt to recreate the image of her father, but as we can see in the poem the image is broken and irreparable. She acknowledges that this is something that she will never be able to do. We can see this in the use of the words “perhaps you consider” (7). Here we can see that the colossus is in fact not a prophet, but rather only considers himself as being one. By using the word, “you” (7) she also is referring to herself. She tells herself that perhaps she considers herself “a mouthpiece of the dead” (7) in writing this poem. The colossus is in fact a god. Or rather a representation of one.

                                                                                                                                                                                  

The following line also is quite interesting:

“A blue sky out of the Oresteia” (16)

It is interesting because it is extremely paradoxical. It uses the image of the blue sky, which is a positive image, together with the image of the Oresteia. The Oresteia refers to a trilogy of tragic plays by the ancient Greek playwriter Aristophanes. The Oresteia is about a blood feud within a prominent Greek family. The plays are rather horrific seeing as they involve a series of murders, all as revenge for previous murders. Seeing as the Ossetia is a tragic play one is not likely to associate it with a blue sky. The paradoxical nature of this image once again is mimetic of the brokenness of the colossus. The first one who is murdered in the Oresteia is Agamemnon: the patriarch of the family. After his death, everything erupted into chaos. It is after his murder that the cycle of revenge starts. Silvia Plath might blame a lot of her problems on the death of her father. She blames him for being absent from her life. The “blue sky” (16) might symbolize the absence of her father from her life.

                                                                                                                                                                                   

The Colossus is an extremely interesting poem and although it has no rhyme scheme or any meter it manages to make it interesting in other ways. What makes it interesting is the way mimesis and enjambment is used in the poem. It definitely is a poem worth considering.

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