Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In Sylvia Plath's "Lesbos," the kitchen becomes a battleground, a microcosm of larger issues surrounding gender roles, marital dissatisfaction, and mental health. As the poem unfolds, the domestic setting turns surreal and grotesque, charged with an underlying tension that seethes throughout the lines. Plath renders her characters-two women, one of whom is clearly a reflection of herself-as struggling with a profound existential discontent, a struggle that extends far beyond the walls of the home they inhabit.

The poem commences with an exclamation: "Viciousness in the kitchen! / The potatoes hiss." From the onset, it is evident that we are not in the realm of the ordinary. The kitchen becomes a stage set for human emotions, a space that has lost its domestic warmth and transformed into a place of conflict. Words like "Hollywood, windowless" and "fluorescent light wincing on and off like a terrible migraine" paint an atmosphere that oscillates between the artificial and the painfully real. The light itself appears as an antagonistic entity, as if echoing the emotional pain of the inhabitants.

The unsettling tone continues as the narrator labels herself "a pathological liar" and describes her child as "schizophrenic." These terms, usually applied in clinical contexts, amplify the sense of crisis. But it is in the portrayal of the other woman in the poem where we encounter the deepest rancor. This woman is cast as equally unsatisfied, willing to go to extremes in her unhappiness: "You say I should drown my girl. / She'll cut her throat at ten if she's mad at two." Such graphic ideas are not only shocking but also reveal the depth of the emotional turmoil that these women are experiencing.

Midway through the poem, the tone shifts towards introspection and a questioning of roles and possibilities: "I should sit on a rock off Cornwall and comb my hair. / I should wear tiger pants, I should have an affair." Here, the narrator allows herself to imagine a life less confined, less determined by social and gender roles. Yet, these dreams are ephemeral, and she quickly returns to the present state, the stifling atmosphere of the home where even the air seems to have thickened: "Meanwhile there's a stink of fat and baby crap."

The poem closes on a note of estrangement and resignation. Communication has failed, and the gulf between the characters seems unbridgeable. "Even in your Zen heaven we shan't meet," says the narrator, acknowledging that not even an idealized spiritual realm could offer them reconciliation.

In "Lesbos," Plath manages to distill the anxieties and resentments that plague domestic life, especially for women trapped in roles they neither chose nor desire. Through vivid imagery and unsettling declarations, she paints a picture of a home that has turned into a house of horrors, a place where love and mutual understanding have been supplanted by bitterness and existential dread. The poem remains a compelling critique of the pressures and unrealized dreams that so often lay hidden behind the façades of domestic bliss.

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...