"The Colossus" Sylvia Plath

Maybe I didn’t pick the best day to dive into a Sylvia Plath poem. This morning the sun rose warm and I rose with it. I went for a jog to clear my head. I played fetch with my chirpy Chihuahua. I smiled a handful of times without even knowing it. Then I pulled out my poetry book and read “The Colossus” by Sylvia Plath. Each drawn out, open-throated vowel carried my heart farther into contemplative emotion, flinging it down a tumultuous waterfall, nearly drowning me in melancholy.
Significantly, the poem is written from the perspective of a female. She spends her days cleaning, maintaining, and repairing the colossal monument of her father. Interestingly enough, the monument is a construction of human hands; but it is made with the materials of nature: Acres of weeds make the brow, a hill of black Cyprus and acanthine leaves make the hair, the tongue is a stone pillar. Riding the line distinguishing man-made elements from natural elements, the eyes take shape as tumuli, which are defined as burial grounds. The use of these materials in the creation of the monument calls into question what it takes to create a man, to create a patriarch. Is his colossal position in society predestined by nature, or is his immenseness the result of a long tradition of social significance given to patriarchy?
The female speaker in this poem also brings into question the gendered expectations of a female role. She is tiny in comparison to the male monument. She scales “little ladders with gluepots and pails of Lysol” (11) -- an image of modern domestic servitude -- to keep the monument clean and intact. The depiction of her involvement in keeping the monument whole, combined with lines like “I am none the wiser” (10), shows that the woman is actively involved in upholding the traditions that keep her feeling so insignificant. The speaker cannot see this, of course, but the reader can. Then the reader can look at the still unequal relationship of female as compared with male in modern society. This poem reminds us of the ways in which this inequality is still silently active. Depressing, right? Intellectually stimulating and inspirational, too.
The sadness of “The Colossus,” as derived from the subject matter and reinforced by the slow moving assonance, is overwhelming. As readers, we must ask ourselves if the sadness projected by the speaker of the poem invisibly pervades the lives of other women. How many other females in our society unknowingly dwarf themselves by their own preservation of patriarchal monuments as “pithy and historical as the Roman Forum” (18)?
In contrast with what I have written so far, there is the chance that the speaker is piecing together this broken and soiled monument in order to better understand it, and thus understand herself a little better. It frustrates her that she “shall never get [it] put together entirely,” (1). How can she fully comprehend something--especially if it’s on such a large scale--that just will not come together clearly? With this interpretation, she is like an archeologist on a dig. She tries to contextualize the past by dedicating her life to clarifying the mystery of history. Perhaps she is actually privileged to be so human-sized in comparison to the cold and broken monument. In contrast to it, she has a warmth and curiosity that keep her connected to reality and humanity.
I guess all I’ve discovered is that I have only just begun to discover this poem. My bright day is not ruined, really, because now I am enthralled by the possibilities that lurk inside a single poem. My mind is working. My emotions are triggering. Perhaps diving into a Sylvia Plath poem is the perfect way to continue a great day.