Two+Sisters+of+Persephone

Two Sisters of Persephone

Two Sisters of Persephone Title: Discuss meanings of sisters: kinswoman, companions, joined by similar fate/ struggles, two parts of the same whole -Discuss Persephone allusion: daughter of Demeter and Zeus; abducted by Hades, god of the underworld; married Hades so she spends 6 months on Earth (during the seasons spring and summer) but returns for 6 months (thus Earth experiences autumn and winter) Argument: A woman has two roles in the world, the professional role and the motherly role. A woman must find a balance between a mother woman and a career woman, even though both roles are unfulfilling. “Daylong a duet of shade and light plays between these” -figure out how this would fit in to the presentation.
 * A birthday present

First sister: - Sits in a dark, wainscoted room and works problems on a mathematical machine - Dry ticks mark time as she calculates each sum at this barren enterprise //White collar job / career woman; the barren enterprise suggests the work she is doing is unpleasant and unsatisfying. The ticks could refer to a light sharp clicking noise and/ or serve as a unit of measurement. The ticks are dry because the first sister is infertile and unable to bear children.// - Rat-shrewd go her squint eyes //It’s typical of Plath to make up her own words, for example in The Colossus when she uses the words “pig-grunt” and “mule-bray.” Here she adds rat, which connotes intelligence, to the word shrewd, which is defined as cunning, to make an adjective that characterizes the sister as being cunningly intelligent. Her eyes are also identified as being squint which is typically a verb, but is used here as an adjective to show her eyes are narrowly closed. It also connotes a disapproving look.// - Root-pale her meager frame //Plath uses root- pale to characterize the first sister’s skin. She is fair skinned from lack of sunlight which is unhealthy almost a sickly pale.// - Turned bitter and sallow as any lemon //“Sallow as a lemon” is a simile that Plath chose to add to the depiction of the first sister’s skin. Sallow means of a sickly yellow complexion and a lemon is a bright yellow rind fruit, thus this simile helps to illustrate the color of her skin.// - Wry virgin; is buried with flesh laid waste, worm husbanded, yet no woman //The first sister is considered a ‘wry virgin’ meaning she is cynical. This may be because she was never able to get pregnant. The first sister’s “flesh” was “laid to waste” because since she never was pregnant or a mother, society considers her a waste, in that she never fulfilled her womanly roles. The first sister is also characterized as being worm husbanded, which supports this idea. Worm husbanded calls up a phallic image: of an actual worm crawling on her vagina while she’s dead, however she is still a virgin because the worm is not a penis therefore she is not a woman.//

Second Sister: - Outside the house - Bronzed as Earth //Bronzed depicts the second sister as being tan, which is a contrast to the first sister being root pale.// - Hears ticks blown gold like pollen on bright air //The ticks blown gold suggests that the ticks are fertile which contrasts the first sister’s dry, sterile ticks. Plath uses the simile “like pollen on bright air” because pollen contains the male reproductive cells of seed plants and bright suggests that the second sister is full of promise and hope since she is fertile and able to bear children.// - Lulled near a bed of poppies, she sees how their red silk flare of petaled blood burns open to sun’s blade //Lulled suggests that the second sister was deceived into trustfulness by the poppies, which are what make up opium, therefore the sister was drugged and deceived by opium. Plath’s choice of the word ”The sun’s blade” is literally a ray of light, but figuratively it is a phallic image which refers to the sun getting the second, fertile sister pregnant.// - Becomes the sun’s bride //The second sister marries the sun.// - Grows quick with seed //The second sister becomes pregnant.// - Bears a king //The second sister gives birth to a son.//