“Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath: A Critical Analysis

Introduction: “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath

“Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath first appeared in 1953 in Mademoiselle magazine, marking one of her early forays into published poetry. This villanelle captures Plath’s powerful expression of unrequited love, emotional despair, and inner turmoil through hauntingly vivid language and repetitive structure. The poem’s refrain, “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead,” echoes Plath’s intense psychological depth, as she explores themes of love, disillusionment, and the blurred line between reality and imagination. Its popularity can be attributed to the raw honesty of Plath’s introspection, which resonates with readers who have experienced the ache of loss and unfulfilled desire. The poem’s unique fusion of lyricism with emotional vulnerability has cemented it as one of Plath’s iconic works, celebrated for its exploration of mental anguish and the struggle between yearning for connection and the suffocating pull of isolation.

Text: “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)”

Annotations: “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath

Line	Annotation
“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;”	This line expresses a sense of control or withdrawal, as if by closing her eyes, the speaker can make reality vanish. It indicates a desire to escape or dissociate from the pain associated with the world.
“I lift my lids and all is born again.”	Here, the speaker reverses the previous act by reopening her eyes, symbolizing how reality and pain come flooding back. It reflects a cycle of seeking solace through escape but inevitably facing reality again.
“(I think I made you up inside my head.)”	This refrain suggests doubt and introspection, questioning whether the love or person she addresses was real or a figment of her imagination. This line conveys themes of mental instability and unreliable memory.
“The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,”	The stars symbolize beauty and celestial harmony but are described as “waltzing” away, indicating a loss of wonder or stability. “Blue and red” may evoke vivid emotions or a sense of dissonance in what should be harmonious.
“And arbitrary blackness gallops in:”	The “arbitrary blackness” suggests overwhelming darkness or despair that enters without reason or warning, reflecting feelings of depression. The word “gallops” implies force and speed, indicating how quickly this despair takes over.
“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.”	Repeated from the first line, this refrain emphasizes the cyclical nature of her retreat from reality. It reiterates her attempt to withdraw from a world that causes her distress.
“I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed”	The speaker recalls a dream or fantasy in which she was enchanted or seduced. “Bewitched” suggests an otherworldly or spellbinding influence, indicating how deeply the imagined lover has captivated her.
“And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.”	“Moon-struck” and “kissed me quite insane” intensify the fantasy, reflecting both enchantment and madness. The imagery implies that love (or longing for it) has unbalanced her mind, leading to confusion and obsession.
“(I think I made you up inside my head.)”	The refrain returns, reinforcing the idea that her intense emotions may be based on illusion. This line creates an internal conflict between desire and doubt about the existence of her lover or the authenticity of her feelings.
“God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:”	In a dramatic image, divine and infernal forces disappear, symbolizing disillusionment with cosmic order or faith. This line conveys an existential void where both heaven and hell lose their meaning in the face of her emotional anguish.
“Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:”	Angels (seraphim) and devils are dismissed, suggesting a collapse of spiritual or moral frameworks. The world becomes empty and devoid of the supernatural or moral guidance, reflecting her deep despair and nihilism.
“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.”	This repetition underscores her attempt to control or negate painful reality through imagination or withdrawal, but it only offers a temporary escape.
“I fancied you’d return the way you said,”	This line reveals her longing and hope that the lover would keep their promises and return to her. “Fancied” suggests it was a hopeful yet ultimately unrealistic expectation, indicating her disappointment.
“But I grow old and I forget your name.”	The speaker acknowledges the passage of time and a fading memory of the lover. It suggests the impermanence of both her fantasy and emotional pain, as she resigns to forgetfulness and the erosion of passion.
“(I think I made you up inside my head.)”	Repeating the refrain once again, she resigns to the notion that her lover may never have existed outside her mind. This line captures her internal conflict between memory, fantasy, and reality.
“I should have loved a thunderbird instead;”	This line expresses regret for not choosing something enduring and reliable (“thunderbird” as a mythical creature or a bird that returns with the seasons). She contrasts this with the unreliable love she feels she imagined.
“At least when spring comes they roar back again.”	Unlike her imaginary lover, thunderbirds or actual birds are reliable, cyclically returning with the seasons. This highlights her yearning for stability and constancy in love, which she finds lacking in her imagined relationship.
“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.”	This closing repetition emphasizes her desire to escape, reiterating the poem’s cycle of fantasy and disillusionment. It underscores the poem’s theme of withdrawal as her only solace from a painful, unfulfilled love.
“(I think I made you up inside my head.)”	The final line reaffirms her realization that her idealized lover is a mere fantasy. This closure suggests an acceptance of her solitary, introspective world, where her imagined love is her own creation rather than a shared reality.

Literary And Poetic Devices: “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath

Device	Example	Explanation
Alliteration	“world drops dead”	The repetition of the “d” sound emphasizes finality and creates a rhythmic impact, enhancing the sense of an ending or cessation.
Anaphora	“I shut my eyes… I lift my lids…”	The repetition of “I” at the beginning of lines highlights the speaker’s personal perspective and emphasizes her actions and internal reflections.
Apostrophe	“I dreamed that you bewitched me…”	The speaker addresses an absent or imagined lover directly, creating intimacy and reflecting the intensity of her feelings, even in the lover’s absence.
Assonance	“blue and red”	The repetition of the “u” sound in “blue” and “red” links these contrasting colors, symbolizing emotional highs and lows, and enhances the musicality of the line.
Caesura	“I grow old and I forget your name.”	The pause after “I grow old” creates a reflective tone, allowing the reader to dwell on the passage of time and the fading of memory.
Consonance	“God topples from the sky”	The repetition of the “s” sound creates a soft, almost hissing effect, adding to the poem’s melancholic, resigned mood.
Enjambment	“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; / I lift my lids…”	Enjambment here drives the reader forward, mirroring the poem’s sense of continuous introspection and emotional fluctuation.
Epizeuxis	“drops dead, drops dead”	The repetition of “drops dead” reinforces the impact of the action, suggesting a cyclical, overwhelming sense of loss and withdrawal.
Hyperbole	“I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed”	The idea of being “bewitched” into bed is exaggerated, suggesting the overwhelming and magical pull of her imagined lover.
Imagery	“The stars go waltzing out in blue and red”	Vivid imagery of stars “waltzing” in colors evokes a dreamlike and surreal quality, illustrating her emotional intensity and blurred reality.
Irony	“I think I made you up inside my head.”	There’s irony in her realization that her intense emotions may be directed toward an illusion, as she questions the existence of the lover she longs for.
Juxtaposition	“God topples… hell’s fires fade”	Heaven and hell are placed side by side to emphasize the speaker’s sense of collapse in her worldview, where both good and evil lose meaning.
Metaphor	“I should have loved a thunderbird instead”	Comparing love to a “thunderbird” suggests a desire for something powerful, reliable, and recurring, unlike her imagined, fleeting lover.
Paradox	“I lift my lids and all is born again.”	The contradiction lies in closing one’s eyes to “kill” the world, yet lifting them brings it back, representing the paradox of perception and emotional cycles.
Personification	“arbitrary blackness gallops in”	Blackness is given the human quality of “galloping,” which creates a more vivid sense of an overwhelming force of despair that overtakes her.
Refrain	“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.”	This recurring line reflects the poem’s central theme of withdrawal and emotional isolation, reinforcing the speaker’s cycle of detachment from reality.
Simile	“kissed me quite insane”	Comparing the kiss to an action that makes her “insane” emphasizes the intensity and irrationality of her feelings, highlighting the overwhelming nature of her love.
Symbolism	“stars”	Stars symbolize beauty, hope, and stability, which “waltz out,” indicating the loss of these ideals in her emotional world.
Tone	Throughout the poem	The tone is melancholic and introspective, reflecting themes of disillusionment, mental anguish, and the struggle between fantasy and reality.
Villanelle Form	Entire poem	The structured form of the villanelle, with its repeated lines and strict rhyme scheme, mirrors the cyclical and obsessive nature of the speaker’s thoughts.

Themes: “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath

1. Isolation and Despair: The poem conveys an overwhelming sense of isolation and despair, as the speaker retreats from a painful reality into her own mind. This is evident in the refrain, “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead,” where closing her eyes becomes a means to escape. The repetition of this line throughout the poem emphasizes her cyclical and inescapable loneliness, where her only relief is the temporary cessation of awareness, suggesting a deep internalized anguish.
2. Fantasy and Reality: Plath explores the tension between fantasy and reality, where the speaker grapples with whether her lover was real or merely imagined. The line “I think I made you up inside my head” reflects this internal struggle, questioning the validity of her memories and emotions. This repeated doubt blurs the boundary between her desires and the real world, underscoring her reliance on fantasy to cope with disappointment and unfulfilled love.
3. Unrequited Love: Unrequited love is central to the speaker’s suffering, as she recalls her longing and disappointment. Lines like “I fancied you’d return the way you said” show her desire for reciprocation that never materializes. The longing for a lover who does not return intensifies her feelings of rejection and self-doubt, leading her to question whether the love she felt was real or purely a product of her imagination.
4. Disillusionment with Faith and Meaning: The poem also expresses disillusionment with faith and the search for meaning, as symbols of both heaven and hell fade in her despair. In the lines, “God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade,” both divine and infernal powers are dismissed, suggesting a collapse of traditional structures of meaning in the face of her emotional turmoil. This spiritual disillusionment reflects a nihilistic view, where the extremes of heaven and hell lose relevance, and only her solitary thoughts remain.

Literary Theories and “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath

Literary Theory	Application to “Mad Girl’s Love Song”	References from the Poem	Explanation
Psychoanalytic Theory	Focuses on the speaker’s inner conflict, isolation, and mental anguish.	“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.”	The refrain suggests a desire to escape reality, aligning with psychoanalytic concepts of repression and the subconscious. The poem reflects the speaker’s inner struggle with loneliness, desire, and fantasy.
Feminist Theory	Examines the speaker’s emotional dependency and struggle with autonomy.	“I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed”	This line reflects a woman’s vulnerability to male influence, often viewed critically in feminist analysis as highlighting power dynamics, dependency, and gendered expectations of love and desire.
Existentialism	Explores themes of isolation, disillusionment, and meaninglessness.	“God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade”	The collapse of divine figures reflects an existential void, where traditional sources of meaning (like religion) hold no relevance in the speaker’s emotional world, highlighting her search for meaning in a bleak reality.

Critical Questions about “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath

• How does the speaker’s isolation influence her perception of reality and fantasy?
• The speaker’s intense isolation blurs the boundary between reality and fantasy, leading her to question the existence of her lover. This is evident in the repeated line, “I think I made you up inside my head,” suggesting an internal struggle to distinguish between imagined love and real experience. Her isolation is both a refuge and a prison, allowing her to create an idealized version of her lover while fueling doubts about whether he was ever real. This question invites analysis of how loneliness can distort perceptions and lead to a dependency on fantasy as a coping mechanism.
• In what ways does Plath’s use of repetition affect the reader’s understanding of the speaker’s mental state?
• Repetition in the poem, particularly in the refrain “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead,” creates a cyclical and inescapable sense of despair. This constant repetition mirrors obsessive thought patterns, hinting at the speaker’s inability to move beyond her pain and doubt. It also emphasizes her mental entrapment, where attempts at escape only bring her back to the same state of hopelessness. This raises questions about the nature of her mental anguish, highlighting how repetition can illustrate cyclical thought in depression and unresolved longing.
• How does the speaker’s relationship with faith and spirituality evolve in the poem?
• Initially, the speaker appears to hold some form of reverence or belief, but as her despair deepens, she dismisses traditional symbols of faith. In the line, “God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade,” she envisions a world where both divine and infernal powers are meaningless, revealing a disillusionment with spiritual systems that once may have provided guidance or comfort. This shift points to an existential crisis where faith in established beliefs collapses under the weight of personal suffering. The question invites discussion on how despair can lead individuals to abandon belief systems that no longer resonate with their experiences.
• What role does gender play in the speaker’s experience of love and longing?
• The line “I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed” suggests a passive role for the speaker, as if she were under the control or spell of her lover. This portrayal reflects traditional, gendered expectations where women are positioned as emotionally dependent or at the mercy of their romantic desires. The poem’s exploration of unrequited love through this lens questions societal expectations of feminine vulnerability and dependency in relationships. This question encourages an analysis of how the speaker’s gendered experience shapes her identity and intensifies her suffering, as she navigates feelings of both yearning and helplessness.

Literary Works Similar to “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath

1. “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop – Like Plath’s poem, Bishop’s work explores loss and the emotional difficulty of letting go, using a structured form (villanelle) to convey recurring sorrow and resilience.
2. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot – Eliot’s poem delves into themes of isolation, self-doubt, and unfulfilled longing, mirroring Plath’s introspective tone and exploration of internal conflict.
3. “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath – This poem also reflects Plath’s intense emotional struggles and complex relationships, as well as a blend of love and resentment, similar to the conflicted feelings in “Mad Girl’s Love Song”.
4. “When You Are Old” by W.B. Yeats – Yeats’ poem deals with unrequited love and the haunting memories of a lost relationship, paralleling Plath’s theme of longing and fading connection.
5. “Remember” by Christina Rossetti – Rossetti’s meditation on love, memory, and the pain of separation reflects the themes of loss and yearning found in Plath’s poem, evoking a similar tone of introspective sorrow.

Representative Quotations of “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath

Quotation	Context	Theoretical Perspective
“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.”	Repeated refrain where the speaker retreats into herself, attempting to escape reality.	Psychoanalytic Theory – Reflects the use of withdrawal as a coping mechanism to escape painful emotions, indicating repression and avoidance.
“I lift my lids and all is born again.”	A momentary return to reality when the speaker reopens her eyes, symbolizing the cycle of despair.	Existentialism – Highlights the inescapable cycle of human experience, where attempts to avoid reality only lead back to the same suffering.
“(I think I made you up inside my head.)”	Refrain showing doubt about whether the lover ever existed outside her mind.	Postmodernism – Raises questions of subjective reality and the reliability of memory, blurring lines between fantasy and reality.
“The stars go waltzing out in blue and red.”	Imagery describing the night sky, portraying a surreal, dreamlike atmosphere.	Romanticism – Emphasizes the emotional response to nature, using vivid imagery to reflect the speaker’s inner emotional turbulence.
“And arbitrary blackness gallops in.”	A sudden onset of darkness, personified as it overtakes her mind.	Psychoanalytic Theory – Represents intrusive, uncontrollable thoughts associated with mental anguish, likened to Freud’s concept of the Id.
“I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed.”	Describes a fantasy where she is enchanted or controlled by her lover.	Feminist Theory – Reflects traditional gender dynamics and vulnerability, with the woman being passively affected by male influence.
“God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade.”	Depiction of a breakdown in faith, with spiritual symbols losing significance.	Existentialism – The collapse of religious symbols points to a nihilistic void, where meaning is elusive in the speaker’s despair.
“Exit seraphim and Satan’s men.”	Angels and devils both depart, leaving an empty spiritual landscape.	Postmodernism – Suggests a collapse of traditional binaries (good/evil), reflecting postmodern disillusionment with clear moral structures.
“I fancied you’d return the way you said.”	Hints at unfulfilled promises and the speaker’s disillusionment.	Feminist Theory – Highlights the theme of female vulnerability in love, with the speaker hoping for reciprocation that never comes.
“I should have loved a thunderbird instead.”	The speaker regrets not choosing a more stable and reliable object of affection.	Existentialism – Reveals the speaker’s search for meaning and reliability in love, suggesting a longing for permanence in an impermanent world.

Suggested Readings: “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath

1. Greenberg, Arielle, and Becca Klaver. “Mad Girls’ Love Songs: Two Women Poets—A Professor and Graduate Student—Discuss Sylvia Plath, Angst, and the Poetics of Female Adolescence.” College Literature, vol. 36, no. 4, 2009, pp. 179–207. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20642061. Accessed 9 Nov. 2024.
2. Johnson, Greg. “The Many Lives of Sylvia Plath.” The Georgia Review, vol. 67, no. 2, 2013, pp. 351–57. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43491064. Accessed 9 Nov. 2024.
3. “Front Matter.” The Georgia Review, vol. 67, no. 2, 2013. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43491048. Accessed 9 Nov. 2024.
4. Ellingsen, Eric. “The Long Poem of Walking.” World Literature Today, vol. 85, no. 1, 2011, pp. 41–45. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41060334. Accessed 9 Nov. 2024.
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