For many authors, poems are often times a way of illustrating and expressing feelings that they struggle to express. Sometimes the emotions that go on through a persons' mind are too much to express comfortably, and the only alternative to console these feelings is writing. Using metaphors, diction, and imagery, the writer is able to express her deepest feelings without actually telling anyone. In Sylvia Plath's renowned poem, Metaphors, Plath uses her poem as way of expressing her deepest feelings. Her writing allows her to express how she truly feels about a subject matter that is more than personal.

Metaphors give a deeper meaning to the poem than the initial layer understood by the reader. Plath begins her poem with the line, "I'm a riddle in nine syllables" (Line 1). This opening statement prepares the reader for the next 8 lines entailing her inner struggle. By calling the poem a riddle, the reader is intrigued by the mystery and understands that this woman is not simple to understand. By personifying herself as a riddle she degrades herself into an object as she does many times throughout the poem. The fact that the name "Metaphors" was chosen as the title speaks for the entire poem. She spends much of her time describing objects which are metaphors for describing herself and how she feels. The use of metaphors in the terms of material things displays her feelings of discontent and lack of self identity as she is being seemingly used. The fact that she is being discreet and ambiguous from the very beginning begs the reader to ask, "Does she have something to hide?" Through further reading though, the reader can understand that the poem is almost like a personal journal, expressing her deep feelings through writing rather than speech.

The poem's entire length is nine lines, and each line consists of nine syllables as Plath stated in her opening. The significance of the number "nine" is prevalent in the poem, and the ambiguity of its meaning is hidden within the lines after her opening line. Following the first line, Plath writes, "An elephant, a ponderous house/ A melon strolling on two tendrils/ O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!" (Lines 2-4). Plath's writing uses vivid imagery and metaphorical comparisons in these lines. She compares the topic of her riddle to an elephant, an overweight house, and a round fruit that walks on slender twines. At first, these three comparisons seem to make little to no sense in context. Their relation to each other could be almost anything, but in Line 4, Plath relates back to each of the metaphorical comparisons she had made prior. The red fruit, ivory, and timber are all smaller components bared by the melon, elephant, and house. Plath continues to make metaphorical comparisons about what she is trying to get across to readers. Plath writes, "The loaf's big with its yeasty rising/ Money's new-minted in this fat purse/ I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf/ I've eaten a bag of green apples" (Lines 5-8).  Lines 5 and 6 compare the riddle's meaning to a bread being cooked and a fat purse full of new coins. The author's progressive unveiling of the riddle's meaning becomes a little more apparent in these lines. Her writing hints at something that is new and gradually growing as time passes. In lines 7 and 8, the riddle's meaning becomes almost completely understood. She calls herself a means, using a cow and calf as a metaphorical comparison between mother and child. She feels as though she looks like a woman that has eaten a big bag of green apples, and in the final line of the poem, she sees her pregnancy as something she has no control over, like she has boarded a train that she can no longer leave. The relevance of the number nine comes back into play, and the significance of the number can be tied back to the nine months of pregnancy that a mother goes through during her pregnancy. All of the various metaphorical comparisons that she makes throughout the poem are directly related to how she feels and perceives herself during the pregnancy. 

In Plath's final stanza's her feelings of disgust and helplessness become more evident. She writes, "Money's new-minted in this fat purse", this statement, obviously representing her growing stomach also reveals her feelings of being used. The use of newly-minted money as a representation of a child leads the reader to believe Plath feels her unborn child is greedy and taking advantage of her while she has no way of defending herself. She then calls herself a "means" a "stage" and a "cow in a calf". The fact that she feels as if she is a "means" further displays her feeling of being used, she feels as if she is merely an object with no other purpose but to house a child. She feels as if she is a stage, at the will of her audience (her child), doing everything in her power to please them. She feels as if she has no control over her life or her body. By calling herself a cow in a calf, she entitles that her "calf" has complete control over her the "cow" which should normally be the other way around. She eventually comes to a form of acceptance, writing, "boarded the train there's no getting off." She accepts there is no way around this burden and takes ownership for her supposed "boarding of the train" that is getting pregnant.

The riddle's meaning is finally understood, but Plath's reasoning for writing this poem has a deeper meaning to her personally. Her choice of metaphors, diction, and imagery throughout the poem illustrates how she identifies herself as a pregnant woman. She expresses her thoughts on how she feels about the pregnancy as a whole, unveiling her inner thoughts of her own identity. In the beginning of the poem, Plath describes herself as an elephant, house, and fruit. She later ties all of these metaphorical comparisons to smaller components, bared by the elephant, house, and fruit. Looking deeper into the comparisons made, all of them are more humorous than anything. Plath sees herself as large and unattractive, with the unescapable burden of a child.

