Summary
Summary 'Cut' by Sylvia Plath, Analysis
A -Level exam marker notes on poem
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CutCuts the top of her finger off – then rest of the poem is a mental reaction to the pain
“What a thrill” – very understated
Very restrained sense to it, with the very English language
The Indian’s used to take people’s scalp as a trophy. Turkey wattle is the red part of their
necks, carpet flows like the blood being rolled out, flowing like this wattle.
She seems to be relishing the pain – walking on this red carpet, having a bottle of pink fizz –
playful, deliberately unexpected, silly images
The Redcoats were the British troops trying to stop the Americans from going independent –
throughout the poem she is kind of giving mixed messages, the images are running away
with her
The way the stanzas work in this poem – prosaic language at start, basic language and then
as she goes on as the blood keeps flowing out her language shifts
Homunculus – little man, old scientists used to be obsessed with idea of a man in a jar
She actually does have a suicide attempt, through taking pills – 6 months before this poem
She was taking anti-depressants at the time, and sleeping pills after Hughes left
“The balled pulp of your heart” “How you jump” – she is looking at herself from a distant
view
Final stanza, step back from everything seeing herself as a survivor of the incident, she is
maimed – so does she become the thumb stump, or did the thumb stump return to
literalism
Trepanned veteran: back in the day they would drill a hole in your head to let your spirits
out
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