The Eye Mote An IB English Presentation Situate

The Eye Mote An IB English Presentation

Situate the Poem

Background ● Published/written in 1959 ● Colossus and other poem o Sylvia Plath (1932 -1963) (30 years old) ● Commits Suicide (4 years after poem is written/published) ● Structure changed in 1962, after discovering her husband was cheating

Specific Background ● Sylvia Plath was fond of horseback riding in her youth. o During one of her rides, she got something in her eye (a mote), which may have served as inspiration for this poem. o Plath also began falling into state of depression at this time, which can be described as a cause for the writing of the poem.

Basic Structure ● 5 stanzas - 6 lines per stanza ● Free verse ● Tone changes throughout poem o Happy o Painful o Nostalgia

Motif - Horses The Eye-Mote Blameless as daylight I stood looking At a field of horses, necks bent, manes blown, Tails streaming against the green Backdrop of sycamores. Sun was striking White chapel pinnacles over the roofs, Holding the horses, the clouds, the leaves Steadily rooted though they were all flowing Away to the left like reeds in a sea When the splinter flew in and stuck my eye, Needling it dark. Then I was seeing A melding of shapes in a hot rain: Horses warped on the altering green, Freedom Outlandish as double-humped camels or unicorns, Grazing at the margins of a bad monochrome, Beasts of oasis, a better time. Abrading my lid, the small grain burns: Red cinder around which I myself, Horses, planets and spires revolve. Neither tears nor the easing flush Of eyebaths can unseat the speck: It sticks, and it has stuck a week: I wear the present itch for flesh, Blind to what will be and what was. I dream that I am Oedipus. What I want back is what I was Before the bed, before the knife, Before the brooch-pin and the salve Fixed me in this parenthesis; Horses fluent in the wind, A place, a time gone out of mind. Sylvia Plath (1959)

Poem’s Purpose

Thesis The purpose is to recount the event of a splinter entering the speaker’s eye, which permanently distorting their view of the idyllic “field of horses. ” It pains them that they cannot remove this “speck. ” Now, the persona is stuck wishing they could go back to the time before the mote entered their eye.

Allusion to Hamlet “A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye” Horatio (Act 1 Scene 2) “In my mind’s eye, Horatio” Hamlet (Act 1 Scene 2)

Allusion - The Mote and the Beam ● Proverb in Gospel of Matthew o Emphasizes the necessity of self-reflection before the analysis of others. o “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerst not the beam that is in thine own eye. ” - Self reflection can prevent hypocrisy -

Allusion - Œdipus ● “I dream that I am Oedipus” (line 24) o Oedipus is repulsed by his sight when it reveals to him more information than he is prepared to receive. ● ““Before the bed, before the knife, before the brooch-pin and the salve” (Line 26 -27). o The speaker further alludes to Oedipus. o Confirms that while it is important to not become self-obsessed, it is impossible to “un -see” the full perspective.

Structure Lines 1 -15 ● First 15 lines are in the past tense ● First three stanzas are connected o o Enjambment line 6 -7 Line break lines 12 -13 ● Meter is inconsistent o Lines vary between 8 and 12 syllables

Structure Lines 16 -30 ● There is a shift to the present tense in line 16 ● Ends of 3 rd and 4 th Stanza have full stops

Structure Lines 16 -30 Metre: ● Lines 16 -17 have 9 syllables ● Lines 18 -30 have 8 syllables o Line 29 has 7 syllables

Simile ● “Blameless as daylight I stood looking” (Line 1) o Connotation of daylight o Blameless = innocence ● “Away to the left like reeds in a sea” (Line 8) o Freedom ● “Outlandish as double-humped camels or unicorns (Line 13) o Outlandish - unfamiliar, foreign, bizarre

Visual Imagery ● Stanza 1 - nature, serene o Blameless as daylight I stood looking At a field of horses, necks bent, manes blown, Tails streaming against the green Backdrop of sycamores. Sun was striking White chapel pinnacles over the roofs, Holding the horses, the clouds, the leaves ● Green sycamores in stanza 1 vs. burns/red cinder in stanza 3

Diction ● “Outlandish as double-humped camels or unicorns” (Line 13) o Outlandish - something unfamiliar, bizarre o Double-humped camels and unicorns opposed to other outlandish creatures o Motif of horses ● “Beasts of oasis, a better time” (Line 15) o Oasis - water in the middle of the desert § Oasis doesn’t belong o Usage of the word beasts § Beasts outlandish, don’t belong ● Change of tone o Descriptive, neutral- Stanzas 1 and 2 o Painful - Stanzas 3 and 4 o Nostalgia - Stanza 5

Diction Before the brooch-pin and the salve Fixed me in this parenthesis: Horses fluent in the wind, A place, a time gone out of mind

Alliteration and Anaphora ● “What I want back is what I was” (line 25) o Emphasizes the inability to return to a status of being “blameless as daylight. ” ● “Before the bed, before the knife, /before the brooch-pin” (Lines 26 -27) o Driving rhythm o Intensifies emotion o Desire to return to “a place, a time gone out of mind” (Line 30)

Closing ● Should not focus on what there is to be seen, but on seeing themselves. o The Mote and the Beam, coupled with Oedipus and every other lit feature suggests that becoming obsessed with the analysis of another or personal surroundings could lead to forgetting important selfanalysis. ● However, Plath also warns that, once acquired, it is impossible to rid oneself of this ability to self-reflect. o This could, in turn, ruin the simple pleasures of seeing, very much like Oedipus.

A presentation by Chris Natividad Nick Eschen Alexander Davis