Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Two Sisters of Persephone" by Sylvia Plath is a study of contrasts that delves into the lives of two sisters representing polarities of existence. One is confined within the four walls of a dark room, engrossed in mathematical calculations, while the other basks in the splendor of nature and sun. The poem offers more than a simple opposition between intellect and sensuality; it delves into the concept of choice, consequence, and the quality of existence.

The first sister is confined to "her dark wainscoted room," laboring over "a mathematical machine." Plath employs terms like "barren enterprise," "rat-shrewd," and "root-pale" to describe her. The grim atmosphere of her life is almost palpable; her world seems claustrophobic and limiting. She is a figure of decay, whose squint eyes and meager frame connote a lack of vitality or a kind of death-in-life. She appears to operate in a mechanical fashion, evidenced by the "dry ticks" that "mark time," as if her existence is a countdown to an unremarkable end.

In stark contrast, the second sister is "bronzed as earth," lying near a bed of poppies, fully engaged with the natural world. She embodies fertility, sensuality, and life. Her world is one of "ticks blown gold" and "petaled blood" that "burns open to the sun's blade." The sun, in her context, is not merely a celestial body but a life-giving force that she embraces as a bride. She "grows quick with seed" and "bears a king," suggesting a life of productive, even royal, consequence.

What is striking about the poem is not just the duality of choices but the extremity of their outcomes. The second sister, united with nature, produces life, "Grass-couched in her labor's pride." The first, detached from the world, "goes graveward with flesh laid waste, Worm-husbanded, yet no woman." She deteriorates, reduced to a point where she's not only childless but almost stripped of her womanhood. The word "Worm-husbanded" is particularly devastating, suggesting her only union will be with decay, in the end.

The title "Two Sisters of Persephone" also alludes to the mythological daughter of Zeus and Demeter, who was abducted by Hades and became the Queen of the Underworld for half the year. The poem's characters can be viewed as embodying the dual aspects of Persephone-the part that resides in the underworld and the part that returns to the world above. Both sisters are manifestations of the choices one can make, either to embrace life in all its complexity and messiness or to shut it out, turning inward into a sterile existence.

The poem is a meditation on these human choices and their consequences. It poses uncomfortable questions about the life one chooses to lead and the life that, as a result, one is fated to experience. It's not a didactic tale but rather a complex tapestry of existence, where choices define not only the quality of life but also the essence of one's being. In delineating the lives of these two contrasting sisters, Plath explores the tension between the life of the mind and the life of the senses, ultimately showing the starkly different trajectories that can arise from one's choices.

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