Sylvia Plath’s “The Elm Speaks” Dutch elm disease is one of the most
devastating shade tree diseases the earth has ever seen. It is a wilt disease
with an extremely high fatality rate. The disease is characterized by gradual
yellowing of the leaves and defoliation. This is caused be a fungus which is
transmitted from diseased trees to healthy trees by insects known as bark
beetles. In the 1962 villanelle “The Elm Speaks” confessionalist Sylvia
Plath compares her depressed emotional state with Dutch elm disease, which
killed millions of Elm trees around the world. In the fourteen stanza poem
written only one year before her suicide, a bitter Plath cries out with pain.
The theme of depression originates from the loss of love in her marriage to Ted
Hughes. The poem is extremely rich in metaphorical language from beginning to
end. In many ways the poem is designed to fit the definition of a villanelle.
“The Elm Speaks” is a free verse poem with chaotic meter. While living in
London, Sylvia Plath had a massive elm tree in front of he house that became the
subject of this poem. In the first stanza, she mentions her “great tap
root,” which is the very bottom of the elm’s roots. This line symbolizes
that she has reached the very bottom of her depression. She describes her
depression further in stanza two as a “sea of dissatisfactions,” “or the
voice of nothing” meaning it is raging inside of her. At the same time she has
an empty feeling which is driving her mad. Afterwards, in stanza three, she
compares love to a shadow, a dark reflection of someone which is not real and
can not be touched. “Till your head is a stone, you pillow a little turf”
creates the image of a grave stone in stanza four. “The sounds of poisons”
in stanza five refers to what Hughes, her husband, has done to her and how it
burns inside of her killing her like “arsenic”. In stanza six she expresses
that she has been through a lot, but she has always gotten through it. In stanza
seven, however, she admits that she has broken down and can not and will not
take her pain anymore. Next, in stanza eight she describes the moon, which is
normally calming, as merciless, meaning that even the few things in life she
used enjoy are now driving her insane. Similarly, in stanza nine, she talks
about dreams and how they “possess and endow” her. In other words she feels
as if she is trapped inside an ongoing nightmare. In the tenth stanza she
confesses that she is holding everything in and that nightly it “flaps out”
which means she cries herself to sleep. She is terrified of her depression and
its effects on her, which she admits in stanza eleven. Next, in stanza twelve
she portrays the “faces of love” as “pale irretrievable” saying that one
can never find love, it is out of reach. For the second time in the poem, in
stanza thirteen, she admits that she can not take the pain she is suffering
anymore. Finally in the last stanza, she uses sexual imagery that for the most
part states, the fact that they got together has killed her. The later years of
Plath’s life, when she wrote “The Elm Speaks”, were very tragic. She
suffered from a vast number of mental illnesses, including being bipolar or
manic depressive. Her moods were constantly up and down, one minute happy the
next sad. Just one year before she wrote this poem she suffered through her
second miscarriage, which was shortly followed by an appendectomy. Through all
of this her husband Ted Hughes abused her both mentally and physically, driving
her deeper into her depression. During these difficult years she wrote Ariel, a
volume of poetry mainly concerning subjects such as injury, victimization,
parasitism, alienation, brutality, war, cannibalism, death in all forms,
torture, murder, suicide, mental illness, and anger. Only one week after Ariel
was completed she viciously committed suicide by putting her head in the oven
after making her children breakfast on the morning of February eleventh, 1963.
In her poetry it is obvious that suicide was something she had been considering
for a long time, becoming an obsession or even an addiction. Throughout “The
Elm Speaks” Plath generates a basic them of depression. She presents herself
as being the victim of a horrible love relationship that has ruined her. She
uses many different techniques to help create her theme. The first, and most
obvious, is her word choice. She uses words such as fear, madness, poisons,
arsenic, shriek, hiss, and kill. These keep the reader unsettled. The second is
her intensely powerful concluding line, “That kill, that kill, that kill.”
This helps to establish theme because it is the very last thing the reader
reads, therefore it withholds in the mind. Lastly, throughout the poem she makes
undefined references to suicide or death. The first, in line eleven, “Till
your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf” creates an image of a grave.
Later, in stanza five, “the sounds of poisons” and “arsenic” give the
reader the idea of both murder and suicide. Finally, the first line of stanza
thirteen, “I am incapable of more knowledge” can be interpreted that she can
not take her life anymore. This gives the reader the impression that she may be
considering suicide. Because of these things, the themes of depression and fury
are wonderfully captured giving the reader a good sense of Plath’s anger. The
entire poem is filled with elaborate metaphorical language. The most important
is the metaphor of the elm tree. A strong, beautiful tree, suddenly killed by
Dutch elm disease, which began to spread wildly in London during the early
1960’s. In this metaphor Plath, the strong elm tree, dies in London in 1963,
is internally killed by Hughes, the Dutch elm disease. A smaller metaphor, in
stanza three, uses a horse, which stands for manliness, or Hughes, and hooves
running away, or Hughes leaving her. Also, in stanzas six and seven she gives
the image of a storm which is a metaphor for the anger toward Hughes which is
storming inside of her. Later, in stanza ten she is “inhabited by a cry”,
the cry signifies the her need for love. Afterwards, in stanza eleven the
“dark thing” she is afraid of represents the need for love she feels inside.
Lastly, the “knowledge” she has become “incapable of” in stanza thirteen
symbolizes that she can no longer stand the pain she has learned to accept. The
metaphors Plath uses throughout the poem help to create a clear image of the
hurt she feels within. “The Elm Speaks” fits many of the characteristics of
a villanelle. A villanelle is a type of poem having only two strategically
placed inner rhymes. This poem has one at the beginning and one at the end. The
first are fear and hear in the third and fourth line, and the second will and
kill are in lines forty-one and forty-two. When the words she chose are put
together; fear, hear, will, and kill, they generate the idea that the fear you
are hearing in her will kill her. This makes it clear that they are very
carefully chosen and placed. Also, villanelle stanzas are always tercets, which
is true throughout this poem. Finally, in most villanelles, the first and third
line in each stanza have the same number of syllables. In “The Elm Speaks”
this is only true in three of the stanzas. First, in stanza seven they each have
eleven syllables. Second, in stanza thirteen, each consists of ten syllables. At
the end, in the fourteenth stanza each line contains only six syllables. The
meter in the poem from the first line to the last is completely chaotic, which
can be seen in the following: I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my
great tap root. It is what you fear. I do not fear it; I have been there. Is it
the sea you hear in me. Its dissatisfactions? Or the voice of nothing that was
your madness? Love is a shadow. How you lie and cry after it! Listen. These are
its hooves. It has gone off, like a horse. All night I shall gallop thus,
impetuously, Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf, Echoing,
echoing. Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons? This is rain now, its big
hush. And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic. I have suffered the
atrocity of sunsets. Scorched to the root, My red filaments burn and stand, a
hand of wires. Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs. A wind of
such violence. Will tolerate no bystanding; I must shriek The moon, also, is
merciless; she would drag me Cruelly, being barren. Her radiance scathes me. Or
perhaps I have caught her. I let her go. I let her go. Diminished and flat, as
after radical surgery. How your bad dreams possess and endow me! I am inhabited
by a cry. Nightly it flaps out, Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.
I am terrified by this dark thing That sleeps in me; All day I feel its soft,
feathery turnings, its malignity. Clouds pass and disperse. Are those the faces
of love, those pale irretrievable? Is it for such I agitate my heart? I am
incapable of more knowledge. What is this, this face So murderous in its
strangle of branches? Its snaky acids hiss. It petrifies the will. These are the
isolate, slow faults That kill, that kill, that kill. The chaos in the meter may
signify the disruption she is feeling within herself. “The Elm Speaks” is a
free verse poem having very little rhyme, consisting of many assonance and
consonance. The only rhyme throughout the poem, as stated before, are the two
inner rhymes, fear, hear, will, and kill. From beginning to end, the poem
contains massive amounts of assonance. The most obvious are the O’s. Each
stanza consists of a least seven or eight O’s including the many sets of
double O’s. Also, E’s are very common in each stanza, containing as many as
7 E’s. The most common consonance are the many N’s and S’s. Each stanza
has an average of as many as eight S’s and N’s. Other than these few
patterns, the poem is a completely free verse poem. In conclusion, Plath
masterfully expresses her feeling of hurt, do to the painfully hard years she
was struggling through. Because of this, her themes of depression and anger jump
out at the reader. Also, the beautifully written metaphorical language helps to
establish the theme. Many of the traits in this free verse poem make it a
villanelle. In the fourteen stanza poem “The Elm Speaks” Sylvia Plath
wonderfully achieves her comparison with the elm tree, which also suffered
during the time of Dutch elm disease, which it eventually died from. “The Elm
Speaks” I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root. It is
what you fear. I do not fear it; I have been there. Is it the sea you hear in
me. Its dissatisfactions? Or the voice of nothing that was your madness? Love is
a shadow. How you lie and cry after it! Listen. These are its hooves. It has
gone off, like a horse. All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously, Till your
head is a stone, your pillow a little turf, Echoing, echoing. Or shall I bring
you the sound of poisons? This is rain now, its big hush. And this is the fruit
of it: tin-white, like arsenic. I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
Scorched to the root, My red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires. Now I
break up in pieces that fly about like clubs. A wind of such violence. Will
tolerate no bystanding; I must shriek The moon, also, is merciless; she would
drag me Cruelly, being barren. Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught
her. I let her go. I let her go. Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.
How your bad dreams possess and endow me! I am inhabited by a cry. Nightly it
flaps out, Looking, with its hooks, for something to love. I am terrified by
this dark thing That sleeps in me; All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings,
its malignity. Clouds pass and disperse. Are those the faces of love, those pale
irretrievable? Is it for such I agitate my heart? I am incapable of more
knowledge. What is this, this face So murderous in its strangle of branches? Its
snaky acids hiss. It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults That
kill, that kill, that kill.