Colossus EMS

"The Colossus", by Sylvia Plath, is a poem that I am not sure if I understand. The poem, in the literal sense, is about her building a colossus of some sorts, which seems like a large statue of greek epic proportions. She starts the poem off by saying "I shall never get you put together entirely" which makes the reader immediately aware of the enormity of the task. This colossus, the narrator believes, is self righteous in its enormity, shown by the lines "Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle, / Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other." The narrator has spent much time with the colossus, staying at nights to count the stars, and seeing the sun rise from it. From the lines "My hours are married to shadow", we see that the narrator starts to resent the colossus. My guess for what this poem is comes from when she writes "O father". This makes it so the poem is about her father, and I would guess that the poem is talking about how she built the impact her father's death had on her into such a huge thing, she was always tending to it, and always having it affect her life. I really can't think of more with it, this poem is tricky.

An interesting thing i found from the poem was the flower references. You have "the weedy acres of your brow", "a hill of black cypress", "acanthine hair", and "scrape of a keel" (which can mean a pair of united petals in a flower). These aren't the happy 'roses are red, violets are blue' flower references. It seems that Plath is trying to imply organic growth rather than pretty flowers. This organic life is also shown in the first stanza from the lines "Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles / Proceed from your great lips. / It's worse than a barnyard." Again, these aren't pleasant noises, and this time she seems to be making a direct attack at her father.