'Morning Song'
What is the only difference between the emotions of an ordinary smiling new mother in the 1960s and those of Sylvia Plath when she writes her melancholy ‘Morning Song’ soon after her child’s birth? While most new mothers pretended all was well, Plath published her true feelings. Simply because society held that all new mothers should be filled with immense joy after giving birth does not mean that they actually were. Plath had the courage to admit she was confused, and her poem, ‘Morning Song’, focuses on one woman's mixed senses of apprehension and awe upon the birth of her child which create both feelings of separation and affection that contend to determine the strength of her maternal bond.
The first line of Plath’s poem, ‘Love set you going like a fat gold watch’, shows the emotional forces conflicting within the mother’s mind. The fact that she chooses the word ‘love’ rather than a more carnal image like ‘sex’ shows that the infant was conceived from an intimate bond and creates a positive connection between mother and child. Using the simile, ‘a fat gold watch’, changes the impact of this line. While the word ‘fat’ alludes to the cumbersome nature of the infant, the word ‘gold’ represents the child as precious and valued, and the word ‘watch’ conjures to mind the seemingly endless task of raising a child. In her book ‘The Second Sex’, the feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir asserts that ‘a whole complex of economical and sentimental considerations makes the baby seem either a hindrance or a jewel’, but Plath’s ‘fat gold watch’ suggests a newborn can be both.
Detachment caused by the mother’s sense of apprehension is evident as she says to her child, ‘New statue. / In a drafty museum, your nakedness shadows our safety.’ The mother’s reference to the baby as a ‘new statue’ seems odd in that the infant not long before created in her own womb should seem foreign to her. De Beauvoir states that though ‘the woman would like to feel that the new baby is surely hers as her own […] she does not recognise him because […] she has experienced her pregnancy without him: she has no past in common with this little stranger.’ By telling the infant ‘your nakedness shadows our safety’ the young mother indicates that the ‘nakedness’, or newness, of the infant is frightening to the new parents and as they contemplate this ‘shadow’ of responsibility; they are awestruck and confused and ‘stand round blankly as walls.’
The lines:
‘I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind’s hand’
make it quite clear that the mother’s sense of apprehension interferes with her ability to recognise her bond with her child. The paradoxical statement makes obvious the connection between mother and child. The ‘cloud’, or mother, ‘distills a mirror’, gives birth to her image, ‘to reflect its own slow effacement at the wind’s hand’, to reveal her own inevitable end. Her denial of such an undeniable bond is ironic and shows that resistance is futile, predicting her own eventual acknowledgement of her connection to her child.
Plath again connects the mother and infant by speaking of the baby’s breath ‘flickering’ among the ‘flat pink roses’ that relates to the mother’s ‘floral’ nightgown. By referring to the nightgown as Victorian and herself as ‘cow-heavy’, however, she alludes to her resentment of this connection. The Victorian gown is reminiscent of the past, the role of women’s place as being in the home to care for the children. The term ‘cow-heavy’ illustrates her aversion toward her duty of nursing that ‘inflicts a harsh slavery upon her and [the infant] is no longer a part of her: it seems a tyrant; she feels hostile to this little stranger, this individual who menaces her flesh, her freedom, her whole ego.’ (De Beauvoir)
The final lines of Plath’s poem, ‘And now you try / Your handful of notes; / The clear vowels rise like balloons’, end the mother’s contemplation of her child on a positive note. De Beauvoir states that ‘there are women […] whose first surprised indifference continues until they find definite bonds with the new infant.’ She explains that many women ‘feel that the separation is what gives them the child; it is no longer an indistinguishable part of themselves but a portion of the outer world; it no longer vaguely haunts their bodies, but can be seen and touched.’ This appears to be the case with the mother in Plath’s poem. By ending her poem with beautiful imagery, comparing the infantile wails to rising balloons, Plath shows the mother acknowledges her connection to her child. The awe with which she receives the baby’s cries suggests that she is touched by the baby’s humanity, its unique individuality.
In ‘Morning Song’, the mother’s bond to her infant strengthens as she tries to deny it. While attempting to prove that she has no connection to this new life, the bonds become undeniable as the infant opposes her with his or her ‘clear vowels.’ This ‘handful of notes’ is all that is needed to dispel all pretences of indifference toward the child. As the cries ‘rise like balloons’, so too, it seems, do the mother’s spirits and attitude toward the new life she has brought into the world.
The first line of Plath’s poem, ‘Love set you going like a fat gold watch’, shows the emotional forces conflicting within the mother’s mind. The fact that she chooses the word ‘love’ rather than a more carnal image like ‘sex’ shows that the infant was conceived from an intimate bond and creates a positive connection between mother and child. Using the simile, ‘a fat gold watch’, changes the impact of this line. While the word ‘fat’ alludes to the cumbersome nature of the infant, the word ‘gold’ represents the child as precious and valued, and the word ‘watch’ conjures to mind the seemingly endless task of raising a child. In her book ‘The Second Sex’, the feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir asserts that ‘a whole complex of economical and sentimental considerations makes the baby seem either a hindrance or a jewel’, but Plath’s ‘fat gold watch’ suggests a newborn can be both.
Detachment caused by the mother’s sense of apprehension is evident as she says to her child, ‘New statue. / In a drafty museum, your nakedness shadows our safety.’ The mother’s reference to the baby as a ‘new statue’ seems odd in that the infant not long before created in her own womb should seem foreign to her. De Beauvoir states that though ‘the woman would like to feel that the new baby is surely hers as her own […] she does not recognise him because […] she has experienced her pregnancy without him: she has no past in common with this little stranger.’ By telling the infant ‘your nakedness shadows our safety’ the young mother indicates that the ‘nakedness’, or newness, of the infant is frightening to the new parents and as they contemplate this ‘shadow’ of responsibility; they are awestruck and confused and ‘stand round blankly as walls.’
The lines:
‘I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind’s hand’
make it quite clear that the mother’s sense of apprehension interferes with her ability to recognise her bond with her child. The paradoxical statement makes obvious the connection between mother and child. The ‘cloud’, or mother, ‘distills a mirror’, gives birth to her image, ‘to reflect its own slow effacement at the wind’s hand’, to reveal her own inevitable end. Her denial of such an undeniable bond is ironic and shows that resistance is futile, predicting her own eventual acknowledgement of her connection to her child.
Plath again connects the mother and infant by speaking of the baby’s breath ‘flickering’ among the ‘flat pink roses’ that relates to the mother’s ‘floral’ nightgown. By referring to the nightgown as Victorian and herself as ‘cow-heavy’, however, she alludes to her resentment of this connection. The Victorian gown is reminiscent of the past, the role of women’s place as being in the home to care for the children. The term ‘cow-heavy’ illustrates her aversion toward her duty of nursing that ‘inflicts a harsh slavery upon her and [the infant] is no longer a part of her: it seems a tyrant; she feels hostile to this little stranger, this individual who menaces her flesh, her freedom, her whole ego.’ (De Beauvoir)
The final lines of Plath’s poem, ‘And now you try / Your handful of notes; / The clear vowels rise like balloons’, end the mother’s contemplation of her child on a positive note. De Beauvoir states that ‘there are women […] whose first surprised indifference continues until they find definite bonds with the new infant.’ She explains that many women ‘feel that the separation is what gives them the child; it is no longer an indistinguishable part of themselves but a portion of the outer world; it no longer vaguely haunts their bodies, but can be seen and touched.’ This appears to be the case with the mother in Plath’s poem. By ending her poem with beautiful imagery, comparing the infantile wails to rising balloons, Plath shows the mother acknowledges her connection to her child. The awe with which she receives the baby’s cries suggests that she is touched by the baby’s humanity, its unique individuality.
In ‘Morning Song’, the mother’s bond to her infant strengthens as she tries to deny it. While attempting to prove that she has no connection to this new life, the bonds become undeniable as the infant opposes her with his or her ‘clear vowels.’ This ‘handful of notes’ is all that is needed to dispel all pretences of indifference toward the child. As the cries ‘rise like balloons’, so too, it seems, do the mother’s spirits and attitude toward the new life she has brought into the world.