The Eye Mote An IB English Presentation - PowerPoint Presentation

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The Eye Mote

An IB English Presentation

Situate the Poem

Background

Published/written in 1959

Colossus and other poem

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) (30 years old)

Commits Suicide (4 years after poemis written/published)Structure changed in 1962, after discovering her husband was cheating

Specific Background

Sylvia Plath was fond of horseback riding in her youth.

During one of her rides, she got something in her eye (a mote), which may have served as inspiration for this poem.

Plath also began falling into state of depression at this time, which can be described as a cause for the writing of the poem.

Basic Structure

5 stanzas - 6 lines per stanza

Free verse

Tone changes throughout poem

HappyPainfulNostalgia

Motif - Horses

The Eye-Mote

Blameless as daylight I stood looking

At a field of

horses

, necks bent, manes blown,

Tails streaming against the green

Backdrop of sycamores. Sun was striking

White chapel pinnacles over the roofs,

Holding the

horses

, the clouds, the leaves

Steadily rooted though they were all flowingAway to the left like reeds in a seaWhen the splinter flew in and stuck my eye,Needling it dark. Then I was seeingA melding of shapes in a hot rain:Horses warped on the altering green,

Outlandish as double-humped camels or unicorns,Grazing at the margins of a bad monochrome,Beasts of oasis, a better time.Abrading my lid, the small grain burns:Red cinder around which I myself,Horses, planets and spires revolve.Neither tears nor the easing flushOf eyebaths can unseat the speck:It sticks, and it has stuck a week:I wear the present itch for flesh,Blind to what will be and what was.I dream that I am Oedipus.What I want back is what I wasBefore the bed, before the knife,Before the brooch-pin and the salveFixed me in this parenthesis;Horses fluent in the wind,A place, a time gone out of mind. Sylvia Plath (1959)

Freedom

Poem’s Purpose

Thesis

The purpose is to recount the event of a splinter entering the speaker’s eye, which permanently distorting their view of the idyllic “field of horses.” It pains them that they cannot remove this “speck.” Now, the persona is stuck wishing they could go back to the time before the mote entered their eye.

Allusion to Hamlet

“A

mote

it is to trouble the mind’s

eye” Horatio (Act 1 Scene 2)“In my mind’s eye, Horatio” Hamlet (Act 1 Scene 2)

Allusion - The Mote and the Beam

Proverb in Gospel of Matthew

Emphasizes the necessity of self-reflection before the analysis of others.

“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerst not the beam that is in thine own eye.”

- Self reflection can prevent hypocrisy -

Allusion - Œdipus

“I dream that I am Oedipus” (line 24)

Oedipus is repulsed by his sight when it reveals to him more information than he is prepared to receive.

““Before the bed, before the knife, before the brooch-pin and the salve” (Line 26-27).

The speaker further alludes to Oedipus.

Confirms that while it is important to not become self-obsessed, it is impossible to “un-see” the full perspective.

Structure Lines 1-15

First 15 lines are in the past tense

First three stanzas are connected

Enjambment line 6-7

Line break lines 12-13Meter is inconsistentLines vary between 8 and 12 syllables

Structure Lines 16-30

There is a shift to the present tense in line 16

Ends of 3rd and 4th Stanza have full stops

Structure Lines 16-30

Metre:

Lines 16-17 have 9 syllables

Lines 18-30 have 8 syllables

Line 29 has 7 syllables

Simile

“Blameless as daylight I stood looking” (Line 1)

Connotation of daylight

Blameless = innocence

“Away to the left like reeds in a sea” (Line 8)Freedom“Outlandish as double-humped camels or unicorns (Line 13)

Outlandish - unfamiliar, foreign, bizarre

Visual Imagery

Stanza 1 - nature, serene

Blameless as daylight I stood looking

At a field of horses, necks bent, manes blown,

Tails streaming against the green

Backdrop of sycamores. Sun was striking

White chapel pinnacles over the roofs,

Holding the horses, the clouds, the leaves

Green sycamores in stanza 1 vs. burns/red cinder in stanza 3

Diction

“Outlandish as double-humped camels or unicorns” (Line 13)

Outlandish - something unfamiliar, bizarre

Double-humped camels and unicorns opposed to other outlandish creatures

Motif of horses“Beasts of oasis, a better time” (Line 15)

Oasis - water in the middle of the desert

Oasis doesn’t belong

Usage of the word beasts

Beasts outlandish, don’t belong

Change of tone

Descriptive, neutral- Stanzas 1 and 2

Painful - Stanzas 3 and 4

Nostalgia - Stanza 5

Diction

Before the brooch-pin and the salve

Fixed me in this parenthesis:

Horses fluent in the wind,

A place, a time gone out of mind

Alliteration and Anaphora

“What I want back is what I was” (line 25)

Emphasizes the inability to return to a status of being “blameless as daylight.”

“Before the bed, before the knife,/before the brooch-pin” (Lines 26-27)

Driving rhythm

Intensifies emotion

Desire to return to “a place, a time gone out of mind” (Line 30)

Closing

Should not focus on what there is to be seen, but on seeing themselves.

The Mote and the Beam, coupled with Oedipus and every other lit feature suggests that becoming obsessed with the analysis of another or personal surroundings could lead to forgetting important self-analysis.

However, Plath also warns that, once acquired, it is impossible to rid oneself of this ability to self-reflect.

This could, in turn, ruin the simple pleasures of seeing, very much like Oedipus.

A presentation by

Chris Natividad

Nick Eschen

Alexander Davis