FREE ESSAY ON THE ELM SPEAKS

THE ELM SPEAKS

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.
SYLVIA PLATH'S "THE ELM SPEAKS" 
TAMMY SHEA
PERIOD 3