Sylvia Plath: Poems Lesson Plan

How does the speaker feel about her child in “Morning Song”?

She’s a bit detached at first, staring at her child as if they’re a naked statue in a museum. She doesn’t feel comfortable. Her child is essentially a mirror image of herself that shows how she’s disappearing. But she also seems to marvel at her child (after all, that’s what statues in museums are for), and she want to care for them, waking up to listen to their breathing and to go to them when they begin to cry. Their cry is a song to her, uplifting.

What is the effect in “The Applicant” of referring to a woman as “a hand” and all the things that hand can do, as well as “a living doll,” rather than ever...