Morning Song by Sylvia Plath: Introduction

This is one of Plath's domestic poems, and not of her typical protest poem; but this poem also has her typical denseness of meaning like other poems. The occasion of the poem is the birth of her first child. The speaker is a woman who has just given birth to a child and is unable to feel as a mother is supposed to.

She has an aversion to the newborn instead of the so-called motherly passion! For some time she is not only unable to love the child, but also dislikes it. But in a gradual progression of events, there comes a change. The motherly feelings are born in her, and what she looked upon as a ‘thing’ now arouses that strong love in her; she hears music and poetry in the cry of the child. This is a poem about the birth of the mother, for mother is defined by ‘motherhood’, not by giving birth.

The title of the poem hints at the morning song of a lover who laments the coming of the day and his having to go away from his beloved, but this poem moves from such lamentation (probably of a passing freedom on becoming a mother) towards morning in the positive sense of the beginning of a new phase of life, and even the birth of a new poet along with the birth of a mother. If at all, there is the song of the child at the end of the poem. The poem is known for her striking images and her metaphors and similes. In this poem, there is a surreal quality about some of her imagery. In its attempts to express the working of the subconscious, surreal art employs fantastic and incongruous juxtaposition of subject matters. The dominant theme is alienation and the process by which it is overcome.

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Sharma, Kedar N. "Morning Song by Sylvia Plath: Introduction" BachelorandMaster, 16 Apr. 2014, bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanpoetry/morning-song-introduction.html.