Plath's Disturbances: Dramatic Insights and Startling Imagery in "Finisterre," "Elm," and Other Poems Anonymous 12th Grade

Sylvia Plath’s use of “psychic landscapes”, as she describes it, has proven to be quite effective in highlighting key themes in her various poems. It serves as an outlet for expressing intense feelings that are otherwise impossible to convey through ordinary words. This effective utilization of a completely new language has allowed both critics and ordinary people to comprehend the mental suffering of the poet, to an extent. Her use of surreal imagery has made some of her poems, such as "Finisterre", a gateway into a very perturbed mind.

Here, the sea is likened to a “cannon” that targets the “land” until it is “knuckled, rheumatic/Cramped on nothing”. The word chosen may be indictive of how the turmoil in the speaker’s mind, which is represented by the “sea”, is disrupting, or eroding her consciousness, in this case the “land”. The image of the waves “Whitened by the face of the dead” turning the rocks into “Leftover soldiers from old, messy wars” highlights the turmoil and chaos that consumes the speaker. Such a powerful image effectively showcases to the reader the true state of mind of the speaker.

Plath also continues to form such “landscapes” in “Finisterre” by the entry of the speaker into the “mist”. The speaker likens...