The overlying story the author is trying to tell with all these metaphors is that the character in the poem is pregnant. She structure’s the poem into nine lines, each line having nine syllables to represent the nine months of pregnancy. Each line progresses into the pregnancy as the month during the process would. By looking at the metaphors, we see that the character is unsure of her feelings towards the pregnancy, which tells us the author may have struggled with this as well.

Plath sets up the poem in the first line, “I’m a riddle in nine syllables” (Plath 1). She makes a metaphor to the length of time a pregnancy lasts and connects it to the character by using ‘I’. She goes on to say, “An elephant, a ponderous house, A melon strolling on two tendrils” (Plath 1), to describe to her body. All these references are towards large objects. Although the second and third line is still only her first trimester pregnant, so she can not be that big yet, women can be very sensitive about their weight especially when they know they are gaining a few pounds. She uses an elephant to represent herself not only because they are large but possibly because they can mean “a blessing upon all new projects” (Whats-Your-Sign.com 1). The baby being the ‘new project’, something she will have to be responsible for and need strength to tackle. She also compared her body to a house because she is provided shelter and taking care of another human being inside of her, as a house holds a family. Finally, she uses a melon to describe her stomach because at this time in the pregnancy only her stomach is growing and the round firmness can be similar to a melon. The tendrils are to be her legs, two skinny objects, because as just said, they are not getting larger yet. Through these three lines, we go through the first trimester and the woman’s biggest problem is her changing body.

In her second trimester of the poem, it is more focused on the baby growing than her body changing. Plath wrote, “O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!” (Plath 1), the red fruit being her, no longer pure and the ivory being the baby, new and innocent. She then says, “ This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising. Money’s new minted in this fat purse” (Plath 1). The baby is slowly growing inside of her, but instead of being yeast growing into bread ready to be eaten, the fetus is growing into a baby ready to live in the world. The author could have also chosen to use yeast and bread for the metaphor because of the saying “a bun in the oven”. Money new minted is new and fresh and untouched as the baby is inside of her, the ‘fat purse’. The baby has no experiences, just as freshly made as money just printed.

As the pregnancy is in it’s last stages, she becomes more aware of her reality and new life. She starts off with, “I’m a means, a stage, a cow in a calf” (Plath 1), which can be taken in many different ways. She could see herself as a stage because people notice and look if a woman is pregnant, especially if they are young or single, but we do not know this about her from the poem. If she were feeling guilty about the pregnancy she would feel more stares even if there were not because she’s looking for it. She would feel as though her life were put into the public for people to watch. Along with that, ‘a cow in a calf’, could be taken as just a saying for being pregnant, a large object in something that was once small, or it could be read deeper. A cow, much older and wiser than calf, in a calf, a young being still new to the world is not biologically possible but can have an important meaning as saying. She could have said this to explain that she was still a baby herself but she had a being inside her, a force to grow up before she would have needed to. If she were young it could explain the excessive stares she felt and metaphor to the cow and calf. Next she says, “I’ve eaten a bag of green apples, Boarded the train there’s no getting off” (Plath 1). The bag of green apples could be a reference to Adam and Eve. When Eve had eaten the fruit, she had disobeyed God and she had sinned. If the girl in this poem were young, assuming she were not married either, getting pregnant would be a sin. A professor also pointed out to me, she could have specifically chosen green apples because they are sour and acidic which are not healthy for the baby during pregnancy. Lastly, the character states she has gotten on a train she cannot get off because it is too late to change any decision she made. Whether she got an abortion or decided to keep the baby, it’s a decision she now has to live with.

All in all, the character did not seem too pleased with her pregnancy. She was not happy with the changes her body undertook and seemed unready for the responsibility of the baby growing inside of her. Many of the author’s metaphors are repetitive. She uses animals more than once to represent the largeness pregnancy can make a body gain. She uses fruit and other food many times to show growth and ripeness. And finally, she uses containers such as the house, oven and purse to show she is shelter for another human being. By looking at metaphors throughout the poem, we see that the pregnant girl in the story was unsure of how to deal with her situation and her feelings, which tell us the author may have gone through this predicament as well.
