Have no idea where to start when it comes to the Textual Conversations Module? Need to complete a Sylvia Plath analysis?
In Episode #8 Part 1 of our HSC English Lit Program, Rowan and Brooklyn are going to show you how to analyse texts for HSC English Textual Conversation! Throughout, they’ll be using Sylvia Plath’s text ‘A Birthday Present’ as an example.
我们也有一个样品带6分析和示例paragraph in this article just for you.
一探究竟！
与文本对话的连接
What is A Birthday Present About?
语境
Themes
Sylvia Plath分析
与文本对话的连接
您可能想在Sylvia Plath分析中考虑的一件事是，Plath和Hughes是进行文字对话还是文字论证。
Both texts deal with the same subject matter。For example, Plath’s mental health struggles, her death (both prospective and retrospective) and her relationship with her father. Plath’s and Hughes’ poetry also converse about who is to blame for Plath’s mental illness, as well as notions of agency, oppression and victimhood.
普拉斯（Plath）使用生动而极端的隐喻，以与大屠杀中的犹太人进行比较（她受到高度批评）。休斯对她的极端语言进行了批判性回应。在红色中，他建议她以戏剧性的二进制方式看到了世界，他的发烧指控她夸张。休斯在自己的诗歌中使用了更现实的语言，巩固了他对普拉斯夸张的经文的批评。
在普拉斯和休斯之间的文字对话中要考虑的一件事是，休斯是否扩展了普拉斯的诗歌，还是他是否完全拒绝了。在您的论文回答中，您应该对他们的诗歌如何基于各自的背景有着不和谐和共鸣的方式有独特的看法。
What is A Birthday Present About?
Quite simply, A Birthday Present is a poem in which Plath is questioning what is inside a wrapped birthday gift sitting by her window. However, this questioning reveals Plath’s inner mind, her deepest insecurities, her desires and her perception of life and death.
在这首诗的开头，她将现在的包裹描述为“面纱”，然后质疑其中可能是什么。在第5-10行中，她想象着现在嘲笑她是一个无聊的家庭主妇，揭示了普拉斯害怕没有任何特殊之处。她认为现在是特殊的 - 是悲惨的还是光荣的，但绝不是平庸的。
在整首诗中，我们得到了普拉斯认为这是死亡的印象。She confirms this when she states, “if it were death / I would admire the deep gravity of it.” In these final lines she also reveals her perception of death as a means of transcendence and rebirth. The poem comes full circle when she suggests that if the present is death, then “there would be a birthday.” This illuminates her belief that death and rebirth are intrinsically linked, further reinforced by her simile, “Pure and clean as the cry of a baby.”
语境
Two elements of Plath’s context are central to this poem; both Plath’s personal context and second wave feminism.
个人生活
在普拉斯（Plath）在史密斯学院（Smith College）的本科生中，她开始发展严重的精神疾病，最终将夺走她的生命。她试图在1953年8月自杀，把母亲的安眠药带走并在房子下爬行。她幸存下来，随后住院，因抑郁症而接受了电击疗法。普拉斯对死亡和自杀的痴迷将继续渗透到未来十年的诗歌中。
第二波女权主义
Feminism is an idea you may want to include within your Sylvia Plath analysis. Although Plath did not actively call herself a feminist, the ideas of feminism permeated her work. She recoiled at the idea of being forced into a prescribed gender role, as is clear in the following excerpt from her journals:
“The future? God – will it get worse & worse? Will I never travel, never integrate my life, never have purpose, meaning? Never have time – long stretches, to investigate ideas, philosophy – to articulate the vague seething desires in me? Will I be a secretary – a self-rationalizing, uninspired housewife, secretly jealous of my husband’s ability to grow intellectually & professionally while I am impeded – will I submerge my embarrassing desires & aspirations, refuse to face myself, and go either mad or become neurotic?”
– The Unabridged Journals, Sylvia Plath
当生日礼物想象现在说“这在生日礼物中，这种对性别角色的不屑一顾都可以看到。Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus, / Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules. / Is this the one for the annunciation? / My god, what a laugh!’” The present mocks her for being a typical and rule-abiding housewife, revealing some of Plath’s deepest insecurities.
女权主义哲学
Her poetry is also influenced by feminist philosophers of her time such as Simone de Beauvoir, who argued that throughout history, women have been objects, whereas men have been subjects. In other words, women are stripped of their agency and ‘Othered’ – a process which makes women less human than men.
He is the subject; he is the absolute. She is the Other
- 西蒙妮·德·波沃（Simone de Beauvoir）（第二性别）
These ideas of being the ‘Object’ and the ‘Other’ are clearly represented in poems such as Daddy and Lady Lazarus which clearly depict her as an object of male oppression and the male gaze. Plath uses these poems, however, to regain personal agency and make herself the subject of her story. One might argue that in Birthday Letters, Hughes robs Plath of this agency – an idea you might like to discuss in your essay.
Themes
生日礼物中的主题包括：
- Gender roles
- 精神疾病
- Death
- Rebirth
- Transcendence
- Transformation
现在我们知道我们在寻找什么，我们如何进行分析？
分析
There are two key rules of analysis which we have focused in for all of our #HELP episodes. These are:
Rule #1:Make sure that we’re linking our technique to our idea. Don’t just present an irrelevant technique because it’s in your example. Make sure it’s relevant to the overall idea you’re talking about
Rule #2:第二个规则是，请确保您实际上对自己的想法说了什么意义。学生倾向于将他们的想法在观点结束时标记。因此，我们要确保在分析时，每个点都在说新事物，对这个想法有意义。
Step 1: Have an argument
您不能在没有试图证明的论点的情况下写分析。Having an argument is important, because it means that your discussion of a technique in your analysis will be meaningful, because it has an aim.
It is also important that your analysis is trying to prove an argument, rather than just a theme。例如，我们将尝试证明这一点，而不仅仅是基于“情感”主题的分析’Plath具有更高的情感感，使她能够通过戏剧性的二进制游戏看到世界
步骤2：选择您的示例
当您选择一个例子时，最重要的是choose a quote which has a technique which you will be able to analyse.If there are a couple of quotes which are expressing the same idea, you might like to analyse both of them at the same. For our first piece of analysis, we have chosen the quotes:
“骨头或珍珠按钮”
“is it ugly, is it beautiful?”
Step 3: Identify your Technique(s)
当我们选择一种技术时，最重要的是使用一种我们可以分析的技术来证明我们的论点。我们希望能够深入讨论该技术的效果，以及这种影响如何证明我们的整体论点。由于诸如寓言和重复之类的技术通常很难说（并非总是如此！），因此我们应该选择使用可以使我们有效分析的技术。
For this reason, we have identified the technique,juxtaposition，在以上两个引号中。这将使我们能够谈论普拉斯看到世界的戏剧性二进制。
Step 4: Carry out your Analysis
当您撰写分析时，重要的是要显示技术的效果，然后将此效果链接到您的整体论点，就像我们在下面所做的那样：
她想象她未知的生日礼物同时是美好而悲惨的。例如，当普拉斯（Plath）指出她不介意它是“骨头或珍珠纽扣”时，她将死亡的象征与精致的东西进行了对比。此外，普拉斯的问题：“这丑陋，它美丽吗？”展示了普拉斯缺乏细微差别：她通过极端看待世界。
Put Your Analysis into a TEE table
What’s a TEE table?
发球表中的T恤代表技术，示例和效果。它们是您可以用来分析文本的绝佳工具。
All you have to do is include your pieces of evidence under ‘example’ then identify the technique in the ‘technique’ column and carry out your analysis.
Below is an example of how we have put this piece of analysis into a TEE table.
And this is the final step towards acing your Sylvia Plath analysis!
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Brooklyn Arnot文学学士主修英语文学吗ure with Honours at the University of Sydney. She scored an HD average and has even received the Dean’s award for excellence! Brooklyn teaches our English classes at Art of Smart and has over 5 years of experience supporting Year 11 and 12 students throughout their HSC. She’s also a new Syllabus expert and studied 4U English in high school.
