Morning Song
In Morning Song, a mother struggles with a sense of indifference towards her baby, whom she refers to in the second person. “you
The desolate representation of a mother’s love challenges the traditional expectations of a mother-child relationship.
Through the depiction of a precious and unique creature that is a child, Plath captures the reflective and occasionally uneasy joy of a new mother.
Plath suggests that babies are not simply an extension of the mother; they are unique and have individual personalities.
The mother feels dazed and distant, almost overawed when she looks at her new baby. The reference to “our” voices – could be a reference to the parents, the onlookers, the caregivers; the voices are “magnifying” – this provides a sense of expectancy about “your arrival.
The baby is depicted in clinical terms as a “new statue” and is likened to an exhibit, once it has been endowed with life “like a fat gold watch”. The noun phrase, “new statue” at the end of the sentence reference, “drafty museum” – Plath likens / compare the hospital to a “drafty museum” and the newborn to a “new statue”; the child is the new exhibit. This depicts the newborn as a treasured item to be observed, cherished, for posterity, but in a detached and ambiguous way. Addressing the child, the poet-mother also anticipates the child trying its own “handful of notes”. The “clear vowels”, like the cat’s “clean” mouth “rise like balloons”. The child’s mouth is likened to a “cat’s” which is “clean”; it appears to be delicate as it instinctively searches for nourishment and solace. (cleanness, pristine, untouched, innocence – but this “statue” like clean slate changes upon birth)
A disturbing sense of difference creeps into the poet’s descriptions of the child as the mother negotiates the relationship with her newborn. The mother feels dazed and distant, almost overawed when she looks at her new baby. The poet-narrator captures a unique sense of closeness and distance that characterises the new-born’s relationship with the mother . The poet-narrator delays the mother’s singular voice, “I” and the negative – but only to further portray a distance between the mother and child – “I’m no more your mother Than the cloud” .. Plath portrays this relationship as not the typical mirror image but one that is being effaced as the one becomes the reflection of the other… It is not a perfect synergy; it is an uneasy, problematic relationship that has an element of reflection/similarity but also difference. The image foreshadows the child’s increasing individuality and distance from the mother. As the mother listens to the child’s “moth-breath”, it becomes magnified in the mother’s ear – “A far sea moves in my ear”. Once again, there is a sense of difference as suggested by the image. This could be a feeling of distance as well as calm; but the “sea” could also suggest an increasingly louder noise that highlights mother’s complex emotions and sense of trepidation at the birth. The play of distance and proximity is also a play of calmness and fear. The enjambment that links the 5th to the 6th verse, carries over the personified image of a window that merges with the light of day; “The window square / Whitens and swallows its dull stars”. (The “dull stars” recall the sense of fate and destiny as evident in “Words” ; in this case, there is a suggestion that the path of motherhood is about to “swallow” the identity of the woman.)
Plath’s ‘Morning Song’ explores the expectations of motherhood and the detached reality of the narrator’s relationship with her new-born child.
Once again, a sense of distance from the mother as the child travels its own inevitable path. (It is a sense of distance that is also evident in the “effacement”.
The child is like the words of a poetic imagination – both creative objects of the mother – both about to go their separate ways.. distance.. riderless words… love and inspiration that one cannot stifle, capture and constrain. The child, like the words, and the poems, will travel their own paths.. separate from the poet.
The “clear vowels”, like the cat’s “clean” mouth “rise like balloons”.
The child’s mouth is likened to a “cat’s” which is “clean”; it appears to be delicate as it instinctively searches for nourishment and solace. (cleanness, pristine, untouched, innocence – but this “statue” like clean slate changes
Nick Candlestick
The baby is indifferent to the ‘Pain” which is the mother’s alone and separates mother from child: “The pain You wake to is not yours”. The pain recalls the earlier metaphoric reference to a “vice of knives, a piranha” which is the baby “drinking” and suffocating the mother’s life. However, readers are left with an enduring image of mystery.
The final stanza reinforces the singular uniqueness of the baby’s life, which is also a spiritual reference to Jesus: “You are the one, .. envious. You are the baby in the barn”.
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