Mad Girl's Love Song Essay Questions

What elements of "Mad Girl's Love Song" make it a villanelle, and what effect does this form have on the poem as a whole?

The poem's five tercets and single closing quatrain, its ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA rhyme scheme, and its iambic pentameter meter are all typical attributes of a villanelle. The most recognizable and important part of the villanelle form, however, is the use of two repeating refrains, which are initially used in the poem's first and third lines, alternating throughout the poem until they conclude it in two final lines. Here, those two refrains are "I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead," and "(I think I made you up inside my head)." Collectively, these two refrains convey the frustrating and seemingly endless cycle in which the speaker is stuck. She endlessly tests the consistency of the reality around her, closing her eyes in order to determine what is objectively real and to seek relief from overwhelming memories and emotions. Yet her efforts go nowhere, leaving her unsure whether the source of her heartbreak and madness was ever even real. Villanelles, because of their repeating refrains, are useful vehicles for conveying the feeling of being trapped—and the speaker is indeed trapped, in her own mind and in her memories.

Discuss this poem's use of biblical imagery.

The use of images from the Bible in stanza four of "Mad Girl's Love Song" evokes the destruction of order while, at the same time, portraying the speaker's desire to find a familiar narrative to contextualize her experiences. She imagines the disappearance of God, Satan, angels, demons, and hell—all forces that, in a Christian theology, provide order and meaning to the universe. Therefore, she pictures an orderly world giving way to nothingness. At the same time, the images Plath depicts aren't those of an empty void. She uses vivid verbs like "topple" and dramatic nouns like "fire," so that, even while readers picture the destruction of an order, they also envision the drama inherent in those structures of order. Meanwhile, the speaker's use of scenery drawn from a familiar narrative shows that she is working to put her own feelings and experiences in a familiar context. By metaphorically positioning her own life within a well-known narrative, she seeks to bring some control to a frightening, uncontrollable emotional reality.