“The Moon and the Yew Tree” by Tory Dent: A Critical Analysis

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.

The trees of the mind are black. Their irregular branches,

like broken arms backlit from MRI dye, offset by yearning.

They take form in ways only experts can decipher.

The light is blue. The observation of the alien doctor

flickers in his iris, furnace gaslight burning like a pagan memorial.

The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God,

I pity their need for idolatry. It bares itself only to the void of me,

Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility.

I am unable to convince them otherwise.

I hear them mew and compete as if for a rough teat’s clear nutrition.

Foolish rule of the organic, uncultured and out of control.

I am mum and tidy as a nun in comparison.

Though capable of devastation are my desires which punish

the landscape with recrimination, uprooting the hedges.

They swallow fire, speak in four languages, and love no one.

I shudder with pride as they push themselves back to their origin,

to the scraped-out bottom of a uterine nothing;

this hard loneliness, skull-solid, pushed back into vagueness

until it succumbs as if overwhelmed by barbiturates. 

Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place

Separated from my house by a row of headstones.

Its green vapors trigger an olfactory déjà vu like a recurrent nightmare.

I envy the buried faces finally freed from worry and ailment,

from the pressure to remain always forward-thinking.

I picture their release, the prostrate bodies floating up as if levitated.

What peace, what stillness was shoveled onto their pine box beds

where darkness then dropped, all at once, final as an execution.

I simply cannot see where there is to get to.

The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,

White as a knuckle and terribly upset. I identify with its nausea.

It meets me in the mirror uninvited, this face beneath my face,

restless and unwilling. It formulates inside me like a kicking fetus

and refuses to be ignored. It haunts and threatens like a past trauma.

It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; mute as a mug shot,

it is quiet, like someone suffocated who suddenly stops struggling.

I recognize in its warm death the expression of the starving

With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.

Against me a force, not stronger or more intelligent,

but more adaptable to poor weather like dandelions.

I can feel it whittle me down to horse feed pellets.

I’m being winnowed out of the earth’s circulation,

with a pairing incremental as this winter’s passing.

Twice on Sunday the bells startle the sky—

Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection.

I’m forced to listen to the liturgical lecturing,

truant student of a catechism I loathe.

At the end, they soberly bong out their names;

Myths and ideals I could never bring myself to believe in,

my prayers, the self-flagellation of unrequited love.

The yew tree points up like a New England steeple.

It has a Gothic shape. It used to remind me of home.

The eyes lift after it and find the moon.

Once fragile as rice paper, it hangs static and tough

like a noose signifying more hardship ahead—

interrogating flashlight that hurts my eyes.

Now no home exists—just an empty bed,

a pile of mangled sheets atop a dark wood floor,

like snow atop the frozen mud tracks of hoof and wheel.

The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.

She licks her white feathers and stares back with one eye

vicious as a swan about to bite.

Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.

I watch, my leg caught in the truth of my life

where beyond human emotion I’ve traveled at this point.

How I would like to believe in tenderness—

in those symbolic unions that elicit sweet concepts:

mother and child, father and daughter, husband and wife.

The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,

its cheekbones flushed with an afterworld favoritism

Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes;

hair waving, mouth parted in mid-speech like drowned Ophelia.

I have fallen a long way. I lie at the bottom, smashed

like a dinner plate against kitchen tile, china chips and jagged bits.

I lie at the bottom, shattered and dangerous, looking up

with a baby’s stunned engrossment. I’m moving closer to Pluto and Mars.

Clouds are flowering blue and mystical over the face of the stars,—

It will not be quick. Death drinks me in, slow as syrup.

Inside the church, the saints will be all blue.

They’ve ascended into heaven’s oxygen-deprived morgue.

Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,

Their hands and faces stiff with holiness,

mannequins perennially enacting the nativity in a wax museum.

The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild

as one dying of cancer. She begs for relief, but her pillow-muffled

shrieks disperse with the other sounds and shadows of the night.

We are left alone, her cadaver face, gaunt and grim, prescient of mine.

And the message of the yew tree is blackness—blackness and silence.

                                                                             Sylvia Plath, “The Moon and the Yew Tree,”

                                                                                        Ariel (New York: Harper & Row, 1961)

1. How does the poem challenge traditional representations of spirituality and religion?

“The Moon and the Yew Tree” critiques and subverts traditional religious symbols, presenting them as sources of alienation rather than comfort. The yew tree, often associated with death and eternal life in Christian iconography, is reimagined in the poem as a harbinger of despair: “The message of the yew tree is blackness—blackness and silence.” This rejection of religious meaning is further emphasized in the speaker’s disdain for church rituals: “Twice on Sunday the bells startle the sky— / Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection.” Here, the speaker describes their reaction as one of detachment and loathing, highlighting a disconnection from traditional faith. Even the moon, which could symbolize divinity or maternal care, is described as “not sweet like Mary” and “vicious as a swan about to bite.” By contrasting these symbols of comfort and salvation with feelings of despair and rejection, the poem critiques the inadequacy of organized religion and spirituality to provide solace in moments of profound existential struggle.

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2. What role does nature play in the speaker’s emotional and psychological landscape?

In “The Moon and the Yew Tree,” nature serves as both a mirror of the speaker’s emotions and a participant in their existential despair. The speaker’s interaction with the natural world is fraught with tension, as seen in, “The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God.” The grasses personify sorrow, seeking solace from the speaker, yet this interaction emphasizes their inability to connect, leaving the speaker feeling empty and powerless. Similarly, the moon is described as a haunting presence: “The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right.” Rather than a symbol of light or guidance, the moon becomes an emblem of estrangement, reflecting the speaker’s inner turmoil. The natural elements in the poem—grasses, the moon, and the yew tree—fail to provide solace or connection. Instead, they amplify the speaker’s isolation, suggesting that the natural world is neither indifferent nor consoling, but a force that exacerbates human vulnerability and despair.

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3. How does the poem depict the concept of death and its relationship to the speaker’s existential crisis?

Death is a pervasive theme in “The Moon and the Yew Tree,” depicted as both an escape and a haunting inevitability. The speaker envies the dead for their release from life’s burdens, stating, “I envy the buried faces finally freed from worry and ailment.” This sentiment reflects a longing for the stillness and peace associated with death, contrasting sharply with the weight of existence that the speaker endures. The imagery of graves—”Separated from my house by a row of headstones”—underscores the proximity of death, both physically and emotionally, to the speaker’s life. However, death is not presented as a fully comforting alternative. The yew tree, a traditional symbol of mourning and eternity, conveys only “blackness and silence,” emphasizing the speaker’s fear of the unknown and the absence of meaning in death. This ambivalence towards death reveals the speaker’s existential crisis, as they grapple with the tension between longing for peace and the dread of ultimate nothingness.

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4. What is the significance of the moon as a recurring symbol in the poem?

The moon in “The Moon and the Yew Tree” functions as a complex symbol of maternal absence, emotional detachment, and existential reflection. Described as “my mother” but “not sweet like Mary,” the moon is both a stand-in for maternal care and a rejection of its traditional nurturing qualities. Instead of offering comfort, the moon is “white as a knuckle and terribly upset,” a cold, unyielding presence that mirrors the speaker’s feelings of alienation. The moon’s detachment is further emphasized through its portrayal as a haunting force: “It meets me in the mirror uninvited, this face beneath my face.” Here, the moon symbolizes self-reflection, an inescapable reminder of the speaker’s inner turmoil and unresolved trauma. The moon’s ability to “drag the sea after it like a dark crime” connects it to larger cosmic forces, suggesting that its influence extends beyond the speaker’s personal experience to encompass universal suffering. By positioning the moon as a central symbol, the poem explores themes of identity, maternal absence, and the cold, impersonal forces that shape human existence.