p2

• Sylvia Plath’s employs literary techniques of connotation, imagery and caesura to communicate her attitude towards sex and intimacy.

  E: “you bewitched me into bed,, sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.”

  • Plath’s use of negative connotation woven into the “bewitched”, “ moon-struck” & “insane”, intensifies persona’s experience of being coerced into “bed”, their autonomy eroded with each calculated move, cementing an experience marked by manipulation and loss of control .
• bewitched?

  heavily connotated with manipulation as if the persona was cast under a spell or entrapped into a situation lacking autonomy.
• insane?

  suggests a personal loss of control due to the overwhelming intensity of the experience leading to unmountable amounts of regret.
• kissed me … insane”

  directly twists loving act, to a detrimental poison, leaving the persona a “Mad Girl’ as hinted by the title.

  • vivid portrayal refers into mental/physical disintegration to a man
• caesura

  portrays finality of it all, symbolise unwavering absence of doubt.

  • but next line "(i made it up inside my head)" = stark opposition, representing society's suffocating grip over victims casting doubt on every allegation and lived experience.
  • compels women to endure crucifying courtroom terrain, pressuring them to reshape this painful reality into distorted narrative where they're forced to claim "i made" it " up inside my head" and referred to as a "Mad Girl" to society
• personal context

  themes of coercion, manipulation and loss of autonomy, resonated a deeply emotional response in me. Her portrayal of these experience underscore important issues that remain relevant about gender and power dynamics.
• plath context

  perception and significance of intimacy shifted from romantic realms to disturbing horror

  • encroaching mind with filth and dread