Ariel

Sylvia Plath’s “Ariel” is a poem in constant motion. With the exception of the “[s]tasis” (Line 1) that begins the poem, the work proceeds like a violent birth until the speaker rides their horse Ariel into the “red / [e]ye, the cauldron of morning” (Lines 30-31). Through the act of riding, the speaker and their horse merge into a single being. This merger, and the speaker’s queering of Shakespeare’s Ariel into a female horse, raise questions about female bodies and creativity. The speaker responds to these questions by appealing to myth and “unpeel[ing]” (Line 20) their body until they are consumed by the morning sun.

The motion in “Ariel” roughly follows the narrative of a human life. The “[s]tasis in darkness” (Line 1) at the beginning of the poem suggests a womb, or that the speaker is coming into being from a liminal (transient) state. Shortly after, the speaker experiences the “[p]our of tor and distances” (Line 3) as the world impresses upon them. The speaker then describes the “furrow” (Line 6) that “splits and passes” (Line 7) as they move their way through it. The image of the furrow draws on classical associations between agriculture and feminine fertility. The furrow’s narrow trench represents female reproductive organs in both shape and associations with fertility and new life. The rhyme between “grow” (Line 5) and “furrow” (Line 6) solidifies the speaker’s emphasis on fertility, generation, and the connection between the feminine and the earthly. The speaker calling the furrow “sister to / The brown arc” (Lines 7-8) of Ariel’s neck reinforces this connection by gendering the furrow as female.

The speaker maintains their pace until “[s]omething else / [h]auls [them] through air” (Lines 15-16). This unknown interruption in movement causes the speaker to take various shapes until they become “dew that flies / [s]uicidal” (Lines 28-29) into the sun. The earth’s furrows and the sun both resonate as givers of life. According to Robert Graves’s 1948 book The White Goddess, which directly informed Plath’s work, poetry relies on a “Threefold Goddess” (Graves, Robert. The White Goddess; a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth. 1st ed., Creative Age Press, 1948, p.24). Graves’s Goddess is both threefold and one, and the deity manifests itself through maidens (and the color white), mothers (and the color red), and hags (and the color black). The “red / Eye” (Lines 30-31) of Plath’s sun, read through Graves’s theory, becomes a moment of rebirth. The speaker’s “dew” (Line 28) driving into the red sun mirrors the fertilizing motion of sperm into an egg. The speaker’s sacrifice, in this case, should not be read as a reflection of Plath’s own suicide attempts. The speaker sees the sun as a “cauldron” (Line 31), a cooking vessel connected to wombs and rebirth in Western mythologies. The rising sun itself represents fresh possibilities and new beginnings.

While riding Ariel from birth to rebirth, the speaker goes through a series of changes. The speaker’s most salient change comes through the process of riding itself. They “grow” (Line 5) into “one” (Line 5) with their horse, identifying her “heels and knees” (Line 6) as their own. This identification continues with the “[f]lakes” (Line 18) from the speaker’s heels, suggesting that they have been running themselves, barefoot. The speaker’s merger with Ariel comments on the poem’s larger theme of femininity and creation. Ariel translates to “Lion of God” in the Hebrew language, but the horse gets her name from a male spirit in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. In the Shakespeare play, Ariel performs supernatural feats to reinforce the power of his captor, Prospero. Shakespeare styles Prospero as a powerful magician but performs much of his magic through Ariel. By queering Ariel’s gender and making him “God’s lioness” (Line 4), Plath’s poem feminizes Ariel’s supernatural powers and, by extension, Prospero’s theatrical magic.

Plath explores ideas of female power and possibility through the myth of Lady Godiva (See: Symbols & Motifs). The speaker calls themselves a “[w]hite / Godiva” (Lines 19-20) in sympathy with the 11th-century English noblewoman who rode through Coventry to oppose her husband's oppressive rule. Prior to this connection, the speaker emphasizes their bare “thighs” (Line 17) and “hair” (Line 17). The speaker then “unpeel[s]” (Line 20) their “[d]ead hands, dead stringencies” (Line 21). Through these bodily images, the speaker, like Godiva, draws attention to their own body. The speaker’s modification of Lady Godiva into “[w]hite / Godiva” (Lines 19-20) emphasizes their own sense of purity. White is connected to virginity and innocence—associations that Graves’s book make explicit by connecting white with the maiden form of the Threefold Goddess (24). But Plath’s speaker’s “unpeel[ing]” (Line 20) recognizes that their hands and their stringencies—or limitations placed on them—are dead and useless. In a strange moment of inaction and liberation, the speaker “unpeel[s]” (Line 20) themselves from their body and bodily concerns.

After peeling away their body, the speaker becomes generation itself. They are the life-giving “[f]oam” (Line 23) and the beautiful “glitter of seas” (Line 22). Through the juxtaposition of practical, agricultural generation and generation of beautiful “glitter” (Line 23), the speaker spans the breadth of creation as they move from land to sea. The speaker’s generative powers, however, last a short while between their disrobing and “the child’s cry” (Line 24). In the narrative of the speaker’s life, as represented through their horse ride, their creative faculties leave them. Their powers melt “in the wall” (Line 25) just as the “child’s cry” (Line 24), signaling that a child, perhaps their last creation, is silenced. The speaker’s only hope to continue creating, then, is rebirth in “the cauldron of morning” (Line 31).