How Plath Presents the Cycle of Death and Re-Birth in “Edge," and How Far Her Representation Is Typical of Her Concerns in 'Ariel' Anonymous 12th Grade

Plath often looks at the cycle of life from birth through to death: as death is a cycle, it may not be the end, but rather, a new beginning. In “Edge” one must take a journey with death showing that if one seizes life, then one can seize death and be re-born. In poems such as “Ariel” and “Lady Lazarus”, however, if one cannot seize the gift of life then death cannot be seized and is shown to be a lonely existence as in “The Moon and the Yew Tree”. Sylvia Plath presents a mother who is lying with her children in her poem “Edge”. Both the mother and children are “dead [bodies]” lying in a “rose…garden” after the mother has had to kill her own children. This is said to be based on the story of Medea, who in Greek mythology had killed her children so that she could rescue them from her husband and the children’s father. The mother in “Edge” “wears the smile of accomplishment” much as Medea would likely have done, knowing that her children are finally safe from the clutches of her husband who had betrayed her and posed a serious threat to her and her children.

In "Edge," Plath presents gentleness to the death of the children, as noted by the persona who has “folded them back into her body” showing that she is in no way shocked by...