Edge by Sylvia Plath

The woman is perfected.

Her dead

Body wears the smile of accomplishment,

The illusion of a Greek necessity

Flows in the scrolls of her toga,

Her bare

Feet seem to be saying:

We have come so far, it is over.

Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,

One at each little

Pitcher of milk, now empty.

She has folded

Them back into her body as petals

Of a rose close when the garden

Stiffens and odors bleed

From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.

The moon has nothing to be sad about,

Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing.

Her blacks crackle and drag.

The poem ‘Egde’ by Sylvia Plath explores themes of suicide and finality using two common literary tools, symbolism and metonymy. The subject of the poem crosses between the edge of life and death, and then only can she find the peace and tranquility she craves. This poem does not pursue a specific rhyme scheme. It has various inner rhymes like child-coiled, sweet-bleed, toga-over, flows-scrolls, and rose-close. These pairs don’t exactly rhyme, but they create a tranquil tone for the narrator, which greatly differs from the mindset of the subject, and makes the imagery that the author uses more powerful. 

Plath wrote ‘Edge’ just six days before committing her suicide herself, the work is considered to be one of her last. Her actions give us valuable insight into her state of mind when writing the poem. Many interpret the subject of the poem as Plath herself. 

In death, Plath feels that the woman is perfected. This could be in the literal sense: bodies are often prepared to look “perfect” for their funerals. In a more figurative aspect, perfection could be seen as the peace that comes with leaving life.

The shortness of each line and of the poem as a whole establishes a sense of exhaustion felt by the writer/narrator. This sense of exhaustion carries into the third line of the poem, where the subject wears a smile of accomplishment. The subject has been anticipating death in an almost eager manner, and now that she has finally achieved her “perfect” state, she feels accomplished. Stepping outside of societal norms, Plath approaches death as an escape and salvation for her subject and most definitely preferable over continuing to live. 

Line four and five introduce a Greek motif with the imagery of toga scrolls. “Greek necessity” is a reference to the ancient Greek view of suicide as an honorable choice, and often a necessary one at that. Suicide is a common theme in Greek mythology, which glorifies heroes and heroines performing the act. The Greek respected the right of an individual to end his/her own life to end personal misfortune. Togas, commonly worn by the upper class and in white, represent purpose and pureness. In line four and five, it is communicated that the subject had to kill herself and that her intentions were pure. Stepping outside of the subject’s skewed and unbalanced viewpoint, the narrator suggests this honor is just an illusion. 

The subjects bare feet (line six-eight) emphasize the finality of her death. At the end of the day, we take off our shoes and go to bed; The subject has taken off her shoes for the final time for her final rest. We can also interpret these lines as her vulnerability as she lived her life. If it is assumed that the subject has always had bare feet, they are most probably battered and torn from her long and difficult journey through life. Now, however, she can rest those bare feet in peace and death. Greek statues often were portrayed with bare feet as well. 

Line nine begins the discussion of infanticide. Plath compares the dead children to white serpents coiled around the subject. There are two main interpretations of this metaphor. 

Within the context of Plath’s life, the dead children could symbolize the multiple miscarriages that suffocate her with guilt and disappointment. The white represents emptiness–like the emptiness of a womb–which diverges from her earlier use of white. The pitchers of milk (line eleven) are her breasts, also empty. This could be a physical manifestation of her insecurities as a mother which comes with a miscarriage. The miscarriage symbol continues in the next lines where the subject “has folded them [the dead children] back into her body”. 

The second interpretation is that the subject is killing her own children along with herself. This alludes to the story of ‘Medea’. Here, the Greek motif appears once again. In this Greek tragedy, Medea kills her own children in an act of revenge after her husband leaves her for another woman. In this poem, contrastingly, the subject would kill her children with the intentions of keeping them with her, and protecting them from the harms of life, just as the rose pulls its petals back to protect the seeds within it. It has been suggested that Plath considered killing her own two children when killing herself. In this interpretation, the empty pitchers represent post-nursing breasts, empty of the poisoned milk they once held. The author is describing the infanticide with the poison. The fragmentary couplets and enjambments create the impression of an unbalanced narrator. The Greek necessity from line two might be the justification the subject/author feels that they need to perform this act along with the suicide. 

Line sixteen depicts life as a night flower from which odor bleed and cause the garden to stiffen. This imagery describes the pains life brings that the subject is attempting to save her children from, as a rose does. 

The next lines of the poems introduce the moon as a witness of the scene. The moon is a female figure accustomed to tragedy. This shows Plath’s view that women experience more tragedy than men and the struggle of women is eternal, greater than just one woman. As the moon views the tragedy of the dead woman, she is nonplussed because the pain experienced by women is common and prevalent. If we look back to the tragedy of Medea, her pain and suffering were brought upon by the betrayal of the man she loved and sacrificed her life as princess and her brother’s life for. The moon shows how Plath feels about the oppression of women: she thinks it is eternal and cyclical, just as the moon is.

The moon is often linked to menstruation; However, in other Plath poems, the moon represents motherhood. The menstruation train of thought could mean the absence of pregnancy and refer to the multiple miscarriages that Plath experienced throughout her lifetime. 

The “blacks” in the last line could be the chains that life and motherhood that crackle and drag behind her as the moon continues on. The moon is eternal and has no escape. She will always be bound by these chains. The harsh alliteration here depicts the negative atmosphere that surrounds the moon and her eternal struggle. These chains could also symbolize her oppression, going back to what the moon itself means to Plath.

Overall, Plath displays her internal struggle with life, motherhood, and oppression in this poem, which all lead up to her suicide. As her last work before she died, it leaves behind a powerful legacy that influences readers, especially women, to look more critically at the roles of motherhood and femininity that are forced upon us. Plath’s view of death as salvation is a dangerous one, that rings true with the ancient Greek. However, it should be noted that this belief should remain in ancient times.

Works Cited

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Medea.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 14 Feb. 2018.

“Edge Analysis.” Edge Analysis Sylvia Plath : Summary Explanation Meaning Overview Essay Writing Critique Peer Review Literary Criticism Synopsis Online Education.

"Edge - The Poem" Critical Guide to Poetry for Students Ed. Philip K. Jason. eNotes, Inc. 2002 eNotes, 14 Apr, 2019.

Laios, K, et al. “Suicide in Ancient Greece.” Psychiatrike = Psychiatriki, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2014.