Plath's "You're"

Analysis of the poem, with a bonus writing prompt.

I just discovered Sylvia Plath’s “You’re”:

Clownlike, happiest on your hands, 
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled, 
Gilled like a fish. A common-sense 
Thumbs-down on the dodo's mode.
Wrapped up in yourself like a spool, 
Trawling your dark as owls do.
Mute as a turnip from the Fourth 
Of July to All Fools' Day, 
O high-riser, my little loaf.

Vague as fog and looked for like mail.
Farther off than Australia.
Bent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn.
Snug as a bud and at home 
Like a sprat in a pickle jug.
A creel of eels, all ripples.
Jumpy as a Mexican bean.
Right, like a well-done sum.
A clean slate, with your own face on.

This poem is just a list of analogies (or metaphors, or similes: I use these terms somewhat interchangeably). I’m intrigued by this because I’ve been thinking about analogies again, how they are often unexplained or ambiguous, yet some often work despite this. This is akin to surrealist images, which leave the analogy they unclear.

The world is full, maximally full, of analogies. Some are easy and well known (cliches and idioms). Others are rational compelling. But new or novel analogies often evade us unless our attention is drawn to the specific way they overlap. The interesting part is figuring out, when writing a poem, how and when to deploy this kind of unclear analogy.

In “You’re,” Plath uses an unusual, explained analogies at some points, but the majority of the time she explains the analogy in a short phrase called a “metaphoric extension” (a term from Laykoff & Johnson’s acclaimed Metaphors We Live By). A metaphoric extension is a further inference that is coherent with a room metaphor (that is, if the metaphor is “extended”).

So, in “Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,” we can say the analogy here is the person (“you”) and a spool (of, presumably, yarn or thread). Plath could have left it at “you are a spool,” which would have identified two terms of an analogy without explaining the connection. The extending phrase, “wrapped up in yourself” identifies a specific aspect of the analogy, which focuses and narrows the comparison. “You are like a spool” could go in a number of directions, whereas being “wrapped up in yourself” indicates a more specific way one is like a spool, something like the personality or psyche of “you” (as opposed to, for example the physical body). The extending phrase make the analogy explicit when it would have otherwise been hidden or implicit.

A surreal image leaves the connection implicit, usually by withholding extension phrases or by using extensions that are themselves unclear, to maximize or expand the analogy’s possibilities. On the other hand, a traditional “poetic” analogy usually provides the explanation phrase, or it may leave it out if the connection is obvious or easily inferred.

For example, “O high-riser” and “little loaf” are clear. They are terms of endearment for “you” (indicated by “my”), so we activate the qualities in “you” typically considered worthy of affection and endearment. “High-riser” means “you” is tall in stature, growing quickly, and it could and probably also works as a character statement: “[you] are ambitious, precocious, etc,” based on the conceptual metaphor, “A tall building is good, powerful, ambitious.” We don’t really need an extension phrase to figure it out.

So we have four kinds of analogies:

1. those that have extensions that explain the connection,

2. those that are clear without an extension,

3. those that don’t have an extension and are not clear, and

4. those that have an extension but are still unclear.

Types 3 and 4 are typically the kind we think of as surreal.

Now that we have these types in mind, let’s which type Plath uses, and how often:

“You’re...”

• “clownlike”, explained with extension “happiest on your hands”

• “moon-skulled,” unexplained and unclear

• "gilled,” explained with extension “life a fish”

• “A common-sense,” with extension “Thumbs-down on the dodo's mode,” but unclear.

• “Wrapped up in yourself,” explained with extension, “like a spool”

• “Trawling your dark,” explained with extension “as owls do.”

• “Mute,” explained with extension, “as a turnip from the Fourth / Of July to All Fools' Day”

• “high-riser,” unexplained but clear

• “little loaf,” unexplained but clear

• “Vague,” explained with extension “as fog”

• “looked for,” explained with extension “like mail”

• “Farther off” explained with extension, “than Australia”

• “Bent-backed Atlas,” unexplained and unclear

• “our traveled prawn,” unexplained but clear

• “Snug,” explained with extensions “as a bud and at home / Like a sprat in a pickle jug”

• “A creel of eels,” explained with extension “all ripples”

• “Jumpy,” explained with extension “as a Mexican bean”

• “Right,” explained with extension, “like a well-done sum”

• “A clean slate,” with extension “with your own face on” forming a special cause

Special cases:

• “Trawling your dark as owls do” is a combination or hybrid of multiple analogies. “Trawling” refers to scouring a riverbed for objects from the boat, “your dark” is the deeper, unknown, and/or negative aspects of the psyche. Thus “trawling your dark” sets up a clear analogy for scrutinizing one’s fear’s, therapy, etc. However, “as owls do” supplements this idea and gives it somewhat different associations. Owls don’t “trawl” rivers but they do hunt in forests and fields at night, so the intention is clear: when owls are hunting for mice, they are “trawling.” So we have a nice two-step analogy here. “You” goes “hunting” (in the way an owl does) in the riverbed of the psyche. Not just casting nets blindly but targeting the “prey” in a precise, stealthy way. Something like that.

• “A clean slate, with your own face on.” This is bit of trick or sleight of hand. “A clean slate” is an analogy. It can be restated, “[You’re] a clean slate.” But the next phrase, “with your face on,” is not really extending it. It can’t be evaluated as an extension because it does not explain the preceding statement in any logical way. Or does it? I think on the first read, we assume the “face on” refers to the slate: “A clean slate, with your own face on [it].” Taken this way, the phrase is a paradox or oxymoron. You can’t have a “clean” (blank) slate or surface if there something “on” it. That is a legitimate way to read the line, and this paradoxical or contradictory ending gives a nice sense of closure to the poem, as it deviates from the pattern. I think one could also read “with your own face on” a second way, as an analogy to clothing (one puts clothes “on”), forming an additional condition to take in tandem with “a clean slate.” This way, the line means, “You are a clean slate, but you also put your own face on (you ‘wear’ your ‘face’).” Taken this way, it is two analogies that form a coherent, insightful image of a person who is free and open, yet has a sense of identity they show in a transparent way. Either way, it is varies the pattern of analogy + explanation, creating a solid ending.

Summing up, I count

• 12 metaphors that are explain with extensions,

• 2 metaphors that are unexplained and unclear,

• 3 metaphors that are unexplained but clear, and

• 1 special case or paradox.

The 3 metaphors that are unexplained are “moon-skulled,” “bent-backed Atlas,” and “A common-sense / Thumbs-down on the dodo's mode.” These are especially interesting because there is room for interpretation; in fact, we are obligated to speculate about their meaning. More specifically, at first we try deducing the intent of the comparison, but if we are left guessing, as I am, we start searching more speculatively, which may or may not work out.  (Is a “moon-skulled” person just someone who is nocturnal or perhaps mystical or astrological? Is a “bent-backed Atlas” just someone who is well-traveled?)

If we spend some moments searching and can’t find a satisfying connection, what do we do? Well, in my view, we do the next best thing, which is to take the term (e.g. “moon-skulled”) in whatever vague, impressionistic way we can, and let that represent a flavor or aspect of the subject. This can be good enough as a stand-in, especially when there is more information in adjacent text to fill in details about the subject. So, readers are okay leaving a few analogies like these “unsolved” as long as there is enough contextual clues to restrict the range of possible meanings of the unexplained analogy adequately. That’s definitely happening in this poem with these three or so analogies.

Notice how it doesn’t feel like the unclear analogies are causing the poem overall to disintegrate. In fact, they fit right in. Even though I’ve distinguished several types of analogies, we are not cognizant of that difference as we read the poem. It’s just a flow of sharp, insightful, yet elusive analogies that come together to form a (somewhat) distinct picture of the person. Even the “explained” analogies here, we should point out, are often not entirely obvious in their meaning—they too live somewhat in the “ambiguity” zone. Yet, because of overlapping and compatible descriptions of the subject accumulate, a decently-defined impression emerges.

….Decently-defined, but still a bit mysterious. And I think that is what Plath wants. Notice that she refrains from direct identifying “you.” Who is “you”? Her child? Husband? Distant friend? Some of the images seem to fit a child reading (the innocent vitality and openness), but these would just as well and poignantly fit an adult (an adult with those qualities would be interesting indeed). And there are some traits that don’t fit: could a child be a “traveled prawn”?

But if we know who the “you” is—if she had written “My Child Is…”—the whole poem would become trite and sentimental. Suppressing the identity of the person makes the= poem alive with interest and mystery. Which is appropriate: we don’t need to pre-fill our idea of a person with stock associations of what a child is like, for instance; no, the whole point is to defamiliarize and appreciate the individual as a unique person who can be simultaneously familiar and elusive to us. That is truly the “correct” or “higher” way of experiencing a person.

And the mix of explained, unexplained, and paradoxical metaphors is what creates this effect. So much can be conveyed simply through analogies, and not even particularly specific or clear ones, and yet we feel closer to and more proficient in the mystery of life just be reading a list of them. This way of knowing, sometimes called “abductive” or “analogical” is the surrealist imagery, and of poetry in the best sense.

Prompt

It occurs to me that “You’re” can make a great imitation challenge. Write a poem like Plath’s, in which you describe something only by comparison (analogies), and in which you do not say what the thing is. Try to keep the analogies unusual and short.

If you do this, please submit your poem. I’d love to read it!

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