"Ariel" By Sylvia Plath

"Ariel: The Restored Edition" by Sylvia Plath is a significant work, offering a deeper understanding of Plath’s poetic voice, creative process, and personal struggles. Published posthumously, this edition restores the poet’s original arrangement of poems, which was altered by her husband, Ted Hughes, for the initial publication. The restored version allows readers to experience the collection as Plath had intended, presenting her final body of work before her tragic death in 1963.One of the defining characteristics of the collection is its intensity. The poems in "Ariel" reflect a raw, emotional energy that speaks to Plath’s inner turmoil. Many of the pieces deal with themes of death, rebirth, identity, and self-destruction. The work oscillates between despair and defiance, as Plath explores the depths of her psyche. In poems like “Lady Lazarus,” Plath confronts death with a kind of eerie bravado, equating her resurrections to a performance: "Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well." This defiance is a recurring motif in her poetry, where she presents herself as both victim and victor, reveling in the intensity of her experiences."Ariel" is also marked by its vivid and often disturbing imagery. Plath uses stark, surreal images to communicate complex emotions and ideas. In “Ariel,” the titular poem, the speaker rides a horse at breakneck speed, an image that symbolizes both liberation and a loss of control. The landscape blurs into a dizzying mix of colors and sensations, capturing the paradox of feeling alive yet hurtling towards destruction. This sense of physical and emotional velocity reflects Plath’s own struggles with mental health, as she seemed to oscillate between moments of intense clarity and crippling despair.At the heart of the collection is the theme of identity. Plath often grapples with the roles imposed upon her—as a mother, a wife, and a woman—and the suffocation she feels within these confines. In “The Applicant,” she critiques societal expectations of women, particularly the objectification and commodification of the female body. Through biting sarcasm, she highlights the absurdity of the roles women are expected to fill. Plath’s exploration of selfhood also extends to her relationship with her own body, which she often portrays as a site of conflict and transformation. In “Tulips,” the speaker lies in a hospital bed, detached from her physical form, yearning for a kind of purity or emptiness that would free her from her bodily existence.Nature, too, plays a significant role in Plath’s poetry, but it is often depicted in violent or unsettling terms. The natural world is not a place of peace or solace, but one of danger and decay. In “Sheep in Fog,” the serene image of sheep becomes a metaphor for isolation and death, as the fog engulfs the landscape. This dark portrayal of nature mirrors Plath’s internal landscape, where beauty and terror coexist. In "Ariel," the poem, nature is both thrilling and threatening, mirroring the speaker’s tumultuous emotional state."Ariel: The Restored Edition" is also significant for what it reveals about the poet's final days. By returning to Plath’s original order of the poems, this edition restores the personal narrative arc that Hughes had altered. Plath begins with poems that reflect her struggles but moves toward pieces that suggest a kind of reconciliation with her pain. However, as the collection progresses, the tone becomes increasingly dark and resigned, culminating in works like “Edge,” which depicts a woman at the brink of death. The progression of the poems suggests a movement toward a final act of closure, where life and art merge into one last defiant statement.Ultimately, "Ariel" stands as a powerful testament to Sylvia Plath’s genius and vulnerability. The poems are filled with a ferocious energy that cuts through any sense of sentimentality, confronting the reader with the stark realities of existence, identity, and death. Through its restoration, the collection offers a more authentic view of Plath’s artistry, and it is this raw, unfiltered vision that continues to captivate and move readers.