FINAL PROJECT

THEORY OF LITELATURE

MARXIST APPROACH ANALYSIS OF THE POETRY MORNING SONG

BY. SYLVIA PLATH

BY :

Name : Atanasius Antonia Keta

ID. Number : 2020510012

FACULTY LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

ENGLISH LITELATURE STUDY PROGRAM
FLORES UNIVERSITY
2023
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER ............................................................................................................................ 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................2
CHAPTER I ...................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCING...............................................................................................................4
1.1.Background
1.2.Problems
1.3.Objectives of The Discussion
1.4.Theoretical Basis
CHAPTER II ...................................................................................................................5
DISCUSSION ...................................................................................................................6
CHAPTER III...................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................8
REFERENCE ...................................................................................................................9
 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCING

1.1. Background

Literature is an activity and an art (Wellek and Warren 2014:3). According to Abrams
(1958:27) in The Mirror and The Lamp, literature is everything that we can feel about everything
in the world. That means the reader of a literary work is part of the world, also a part of the
creation of the work itself. A literary work is often also related to the psychology of the writer,
because many of these works reflect the author's real life when his work was created. This agrees
with Wellek and Warren (2014: 82) who say that writers write about their worries, even making
their shortcomings and suffering the theme of their works. A literary work basically contains an
overflow of emotional expressions such as poetry.Poetry is an imagination of words obtained
from a human consciousness in the form of experience or an idea, and is composed using a
choice of words or language that is rhythmic and prioritizes aesthetic qualities for addition
(www.kutembak.com/2013/og/pengertian-puisi-dan -type.html). Poetry is a unique literary work
because it is created from the deepest feelings of the poet. To create a beautiful poem, a poet
must have sharp feelings and emotions (Lagarens 2000). Poetry consists of various forms such as
love poetry, educational poetry, and satire poetry (Tompodung 2003). The explanation above
explains that many literary works are written based on the psychology of the poet. This allows
for poetry to be written directly or indirectly describing the poet's real life.There are several
famous poets with several works such as Emily Dickinson, Robert Burns, W.B. Yeats, Sylivia
Plath, and many more. One of the poets who produced his work based on his life is Sylvia Plath.
He was born on October 27, 1932 in Massachusetts. He is a famous poet with a higher education.
Plath attended Smith College graduating as the best student that year. Telling about her life,
Plath met a man who later became her husband, but her life was ruined when she separated from
her husband. She endured and tried to be a strong woman but in the end she decided to commit
suicide (VanSpanckeren, 2004:82-83). In this study, the writer analyzes the poetry ± poetry of
Sylvia Plath which has a relationship with her life. The poem ± the poem is Morning Song .
The relationship between Plath's life and his poetry is very interesting to study because with this
research, the writer can show how the power of poetry is in stating something whether it is true
or not and can provide evidence that there is a literary work such as poetry that has a relationship
with the poet's life. .

1.2. Problems

Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Morning Song’ can be closely linked together through gender
constructs, especially those enforced upon women. With corresponding themes of
motherhood, female identity and a patriarchal society, in both the novel and the poem, gender
constructs are ultimately seen as restrictive for women, if not destructive. As the fates of
specific characters and personas indicate, limitations of this sort can convince women of their
inferiority, or even be linked to their downfall.Motherhood is a theme which is not one-
dimensional, as both positive and negative aspects of the role of the mother are shown in
both ‘The Help’ and ‘Morning Song’. However, despite the positive associations with
motherhood, both the novel and the poem show how the role ultimately restricts women from
a career, and freedom outside of the home. In her poem, Plath describes herself as ‘cow-
heavy’, which connotes images of a mother preparing to breastfeed for her baby, but also
could signify that after she has given birth to her child, she feels a great burden on her as a
mother.

1.3. Objectives Of The Discussion

In this poem, the writer wants to analyze the relationship between human life and the
poem Morning Song by. Sylvia Plath with a theory marxist approach.

1.4. Theoretical Basis

In the life of every human being there must be happiness and sadness. The surrounding
environment is also very influential for the process of human adaptation, therefore many poems
are written based on the poet's feelings, circumstances, and real life.The author wants to analyze
this poem using the Theory of Marxism Approach. Theory Approach, namely analyzing the
poetry of Plath is associated with elements from outside the poem, in this case internal factors.
social life that influenced the poet in writing these poems. As Wellek and Warren (1997) said
that the author's biography is the main source, but this study can also extend to the environment
where the author lived and came from. This approach is to analyze the elements in the poems
that make up the poems themselves such as the theme, message, plot, character, setting, and
point of view which are the figures in Sylvia Plath's work.

CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION

Morning Song
By Sylvia Plath

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.

The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.

In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I’m no more your mother

Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind’s hand.

All night your moth-breath

 Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral

In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat’s. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.

 First Stanza

The first line encapsulates so much of this poem. The speaker is referring directly to the
baby...Love set you going...and is a tender, emotional start. Here is the child that will alter the
speaker's approach to time, initiated through an act of love.Yet whilst the baby may be thought
of as a precious timekeeper the simile acts in two different directions, creating a tension that
carries on throughout the poem. The baby is being likened to an object, a watch, which
suggests that something mechanical is the product of love making.The reader is a witness to the
birth of an entity that has been wound up and will now become the focus of the mother's life,
ticking away the time.There is the midwife bringing the baby into the real world with a slap. The
bald cry is personalised and becomes a primitive, basic addition to life...elements...this could
mean the four elements of earth, air, water and fire or more generally, the weather. It is more
likely the former, as Plath was a keen enthusiast for the occult, astrology in particular.

 Second Stanza

So the baby is born with a cry which has an effect on the parents who reciprocate, enlarging the
effect instinctively. Again, note the personal juxtaposed with the impersonal:This stanza is the
most heavily punctuated; there are several pauses for the reader which reflects the speaker's near
shock at what has arrived. Not only is the baby a watch but is now also a statue, something
around which people stand and study. It is a mere body.

And to complete the image, this statue is in a drafty museum which conjures up quite dark and
cold feelings. Is the room so old and cold? Is the speaker referring to the house, or is it simply a
question of reinforcing the metaphor?This emphasis on the baby being a thing distances the
mother, undermines the instinctive bond but objectifies the whole experience.This stanza reflects
the mother's misgivings, domestic metaphor replacing homely tenderness and love. So the baby's
nakedness isn't something to be welcomed, it shadows and unsettles. The mother and others (the
parents? family?) don't really know how to react - they're like walls.The idea of the personal
versus the impersonal is repeated; the private space is almost violated by the baby, whose
presence now allows for public scrutiny.

 Third Stanza

The speaker becomes directly first person - I'm no more your mother - in a stanza that has two
enjambed lines, making this one complete sentence, the only one in the poem.This is both
denial and metaphorical distancing. By becoming a cloud the mother speaker is saying that she
is a vessel, a vehicle only, a natural carrier, who disappears or is thinned out. (note the term
cervical effacement during the actual birth process).This is quite an image - the cloud distills a
mirror (takes out the essentials) to reflect its own demise as the wind gets up.The winds of
change. This could be fate itself, the child a mirror image of the mother who essentially fades
into the background.

 Fourth Stanza

The breath of the baby is a moth-breath—light, of the night, soft. And it is outdoors perhaps, in
the garden? This could be the speaker listening to the baby as it breathes but thinking of the
flowers in the night's garden where the moths fly.This is a very feminine stanza which also takes
the reader out of the museum room/house and into the natural environment. Again this is
separation through distance—the mother hears the sea as she listens to her baby—and
reinforces the idea that, for all the closeness and intimacy, there is expansion of the
relationship.

 Fifth Stanza

The speaker is brought back into the 'real' world by a cry, an instinctive reaction to the baby.
She is cow-heavy - feeling slow and grounded, an image that is almost comical especially when
the full floral Victorian nightgown is added to the mix. (see Plath's poem Heavy Women) She
stumbles, is clumsy. Together with moth-breath the baby's mouth opens like a cat's.

 Sixth Stanza

With use of enjambment between stanzas the meaning flows on—again the speaker takes the
reader out and into the starry night sky before returning to the baby and its attempts at vowel
speech, which are likened to balloons rising.This last image is less dark than some previous.
Here is the mother overlooking the baby as it attempts to speak (or sing, or the baby's speech is
experienced as singing, which links back to the title), the comparison with balloons suggesting
lightness, playfulness, things that leave the earth.

Theory Marxist Approach :

Marxism is an ideology that follows the views of Karl Marx. Marx compiled a grand
theory related to the economic system, social system and political system. Followers of this
theory are referred to as Marxists.
This theory is the basis of the theory of modern communism. This theory is contained in the
Communist Manfesto book made by Marx and his best friend, Friedrich Engels. Marxism is a
form of Marx's protest against capitalism. He considers that capital collects money at the expense
of the proletariat. The condition of the proletariat is very sad because they are forced to work
long hours with minimum wages while the results of their sweat are enjoyed by the capitalists.
Many proletarians have to live in the suburbs and slums. Marx believed that this problem arose
because of "private ownership" and the domination of wealth by the rich. In order to prosper the
proletariat, Marx believes that capitalism is replaced by communism. If this condition continues,
according to Marx, the proletariat will revolt and demand justice. That is the basis of marxism.

CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION

Literary works are a reflection of reflection of people’s lives. Through his work, a write or
literary author tries to express the ups and downs of people’s lives that they feel. In a literary
work there is a meaning that must be explored through in depth research as well. In
addition,literary works are also one type of community cultivation which is expressed in
language, both spoken and written, which contains beauty. Literary works are created by authors
to be enjoyed, understood, internalized, and utilized by the community.

REFERENCE

https://www.gradesaver.com/sylvia-plath-poems/essays/the-problem-of-female-identity-restrictive-
gender-constructs-in-the-help-and-in-plaths-poetry

https://media.neliti.com/media/publications/81328-ID-kehidupan-sylvia-plathdalam-puisi-puisin.pdf

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49008/morning-song-56d22ab4a0cee

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Analysis-of-Poem-Morning-Song-by-Sylvia-Plath

https://www.kompasiana.com/abahfachrul/5519c8aca33311a61bb65954/teori-marxisme