Ariel by Sylvia Plath: Introduction

Ariel is the title poem in the collection Ariel that Plath published in the year before she finally committed a 'successful' suicide. In the canon of Sylvia's work, "Ariel is supreme, a quintessential statement of all that had meaning for her".

In it, she rehearses the whole spectrum of her color imagery, moving from “statis in darkness” into “the substanceless blue” of sky and distance as horse and rider, “God’s lioness” rush as one through clutching hostilities. The collection was about her obsessive concern with death/suicide. But in many of the poems she also incorporated many other themes like: feminist protest (which she usually extends to the humanitarian protest against the Nazi atrocity), identity crisis, psychological trauma and a nervous breakdown, childhood memories, and so on. She also usually mythicizes most of the poems by using a concrete level of classical mythical allusions; but she usually uses the myths to negate or at least to adapt in very personal and original ways.

Ariel was the name of the horse that Plath used to ride as a girl. The occasion of this poem is that of one traumatic experience of her attempt of ride it early one morning. The poem narrates the event in which the horse ran at a breakneck, dizzy speed before Plath was able to properly ride it! But this literal level of the poem matters little in our final interpretation of it. Plath uses the very name ‘Ariel’ with multiple connotations. The name comes from Shakespeare’s drama The Tempest in which Ariel is a sexless spirit that serves the (colonizer) king Prospero.

Always seeking liberation; here Ariel becomes the very symbol of liberty much more rebellious than the loyal spirit in Shakespeare. The word ‘Ariel’ is used to denote the city of Jerusalem in the Bible – a city both cursed and sanctified as the chosen land by God; Plath doesn’t seem to evoke the meaning in the poem, though some critics have insisted bringing in the suggestion of salvation too. In short this horse can be taken as symbolizing the rebellious spirit that the female speaker of the poem aspires to be; it symbolizes the transcendence she achieves after the traumatic experience she equates with a suicidal attempt, life, and the experience of growing up. Allegorically it is a movement from darkness to light or morning; from stasis to activity; from the void of meaning or understanding; from indirection to direction; from anxiety to confidence of identity; from confusion or unconsciousness to consciousness and control over the vehicle (life, experience, trouble). The poem can also be seen as moving from childhood ignorance to the orgasmic awakening of adolescence; we can also sense certain suggestions about the feminist awakening brought about by the forced dragging of the horse.

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Sharma, Kedar N. "Ariel by Sylvia Plath: Introduction" BachelorandMaster, 3 May 2014, bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanpoetry/ariel-introduction.html.