Sylvia Plath's 'An Appearance'

For Poetry Month this past April, I analyzed the Sylvia Plath poem 'The Applicant' and my reading of that piece piqued some interest. I discussed the prevalence of certain common themes in Plath's Ariel-era material, including inner conflict and a seemingly unsuccessful struggle to fit in.

Such a struggle seems to be at work in Plath's poem, 'The Appearance', too, albeit in a somewhat different way. Whereas 'The Applicant' seemed to focus on failures within the domestic sphere, 'An Appearance' seems to focus more on glitches and contradictions within the professional realm.

In the case of a poet, perhaps such glitches and contradictions would take the form of the difficult balancing act between the creative and the more corporate-or to put it more specifically, the desire to express one's authentic creative self versus the necessity of fitting in enough to serve as a part of what is considered normal society-or to put it even more specifically and in terms that are still very relevant to this day, the struggle to let one's creative impulses flourish and evolve while also trying to maintain a day job to pay the bills.

I know that's a reality I've struggled with as a poet. Poetry is my passion and involves a significant investment of time, emotional energy, and diligent persistence; the pursuit of poetry is very important to me, but I haven't managed to earn my livelihood through such pursuit and thus I must enact my own often precarious balancing act.

Of course, even those who are not poets must deal with their own balancing acts and make compromises in life. Feeling pulled in different directions is a reality that most of us can relate to in one way or another. However, for those who are most deeply emotionally invested in pursuits or perspectives that seem to fall outside the norms of society, this pull in different directions may feel like more of a visceral tearing. It may feel as if more is at stake-maybe even one's very sanity or genuine sense of humanity.

Find out if you agree with my interpretation of Sylvia Plath's poem 'An Appearance'; read the piece below followed by my additional remarks, if so inclined.

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AN APPEARANCE

The smile of iceboxes annihilates me.
Such blue currents in the veins of my loved one!
I hear her great heart purr.

From her lips ampersands and percent signs
Exit like kisses.
It is Monday in her mind: morals

Launder and present themselves.
What am I to make of these contradictions?
I wear white cuffs, I bow.

Is this love then, this red material
Issuing from the steel needle that flies so blindingly?
It will make little dresses and coats,

It will cover a dynasty.
How her body opens and shuts-
A Swiss watch, jeweled in the hinges!

O heart, such disorganization!
The stars are flashing like terrible numerals.
ABC, her eyelids say.

Sylvia Plath

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I think that one of the most telling lines in this poem is the question, 'What am I to make of these contradictions?, which might be a rather rhetorical question or might be a genuine imploring. Another telling line is the exclamation, 'O heart, such disorganization!'

However, just because these are the most clear-cut seeming lines in the piece does not necessarily make them the most interesting. Most of the poem is not quite so straightforward or literal and deals more figuratively with the concept of contradictions and conflict. This generates a certain kind of frisson-esque confusion within the poem itself, which is apt considering the thematic subject matter with which the piece is grappling.

What imparted to me the corporate or business-like or office drone kind of tone after an initial read of this piece were all the little details about numerals and symbols and alphabet letters arranged in order. Such details convey a kind of alphanumeric filing system vibe on a certain level. On another level though, since such details are part of unlikely juxtapositions (the ampersands and percent signs are like kisses, the stars are flashing like terrible numerals as though the very firmament above has become some kind of sinister adding machine), this heightens the sense of emotional confusion.

In addition to her unusual juxtapositions, Plath employs the multiple connotations of certain words to excellent effect to underscore the confusion even more deeply. For example, the word 'currents' in the second line could convey either liquid or electricity, which creates an interesting cold versus hot dichotomy (or maybe natural versus machinated or visceral versus robotic, but which is more erotic-which meaning has the more positive connotations and which meaning has the more negative connotations and why-and does such perception differ based upon individual perspective and to what extent is such perspective influenced by societal conditioning, etc... This is just a small elaboration re: how one well-placed word choice can catalyze one's mind into an entire contradictory but very provocative line of questioning.)

Similarly, the next line of the poem ends with the word 'purr', which could be read as being associated with a warm-blooded living creature OR with the hum of a large machine. If one interprets the word 'iceboxes' from the poem's very first line somewhat literally, then this purring machine could be visualized as some sort of refrigerator, but this entity is also referred to as 'her' and has a heart (the cold versus hot contrast again). Could the speaker possibly be suggesting that she herself feels like a machine in the midst of certain contexts? Is she confused about what to put her heart into? I read several images in this poem in which the heart seems to be placed in unlikely locations; located in automaton-like entities, inanimate objects, even mass-produced items. Could such odd placements and offbeat contrasts be attempting a statement about mass production being an antithesis to creativity or rote routines being an enemy of authentic expression? Reciting the alphabet (or filing business documents in ABC order) is nowhere near the same thing as writing a poem, after all.

Be that as it may, one has to fit into the societally-sanctioned scheme of things to some extent-typically, at least to the extent that she can manage to pay the bills. Unfortunately, this sometimes means bowing down to an authority whose stamp of approval is some kind of terrible number-shaped kiss-and even though surrendering to such a kiss may feel something like accepting an unwanted initiation into a small cult of Judas's, one may sometimes have little choice. In this force-feeding kind of context, maybe 'the smile of iceboxes' could also be read as a figurative way to describe fake smiles, lack of passion, or slavish acceptance. Notice that Plath does use the word 'bow in this poem. She also uses 'morals', a word that often has some association to societal standards and norms. Interestingly enough, this word appears at the end of a line that starts with the word 'Monday', which brings to my mind that beginning -of-the-work-week sense of dread suffered by many people who don't much care for their jobs.

The line that begins the following stanza is also quite interesting to me, in terms of the order of the words-in reference to the aforementioned morals, it is said that they 'Launder and present themselves'; they are laundered (or made to fit certain set standards) BEFORE they have even fully materialized, another idea that seems awfully antithetical to concepts of personal expression, individuality, and genuine creativity. Of course, this line could also convey an image of office workers adhering to a certain pre-designated standard of appearance that is considered presentable and acceptable, probably because it doesn't stand out as anything special or challenging of the status quo. The phrase 'doll injection mold' just popped into my rather corpo-cynical mind.

I could analyze and elaborate upon every line of 'An Appearance' at some length, but perhaps that would be a bit excessive, since there are so many other poems deserving some attention, too. So to summarize this piece, I shall say that Sylvia Plath's 'An Appearance' strikes me as an interesting and provocative commentary about the conflict between conformity versus personal creativity, between neatly fitting in versus being open to revelations that are sometimes not so neat or orderly at all. Sometimes revelations are messy, confusing, a painfully contradictory tumult-'How her body opens and shuts'.

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Hungry for more of my Plath analysis? See also my analysis of the Plath poem, 'The Applicant', here:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1566011/sylvia_plaths_the_applicant.html?cat=38