Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In "Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Red Sea," Sylvia Plath delves into the complexities of human imagination, love, and the ceaseless passage of time. The poem's air is tinged with melancholy as it laments the limitations imposed by reality on our dreams and desires. It begins with a sense of closure, as if summer-a metaphor for the season of imagination and possibility-has ended, and we are thrust back into the austerity of the present: "Cold and final, the imagination / Shuts down its fabled summer house; / Blue views are boarded up; our sweet vacation / Dwindles in the hour-glass."

The stanza highlights the transience of human experiences and imaginations, embodied in the metaphor of the "fabled summer house" being shut down. Plath effectively uses the hourglass metaphor to symbolize how quickly these fleeting moments of wonder and joy escape us.

In the second stanza, thoughts that were once free and captivating-compared to mermaids' hair in the tide-are now confined "into the attic of the skull." Here, Plath astutely captures how experiences and dreams, once so vivid and intricate, can become distant memories or unfulfilled potentials. This further emphasizes the gap between what "we might be" and what "we are," as the next stanza states. The line "White whales are gone with the white ocean" seems to allude to lost opportunities and ambitions, possibly even referencing Herman Melville's "Moby Dick," symbolizing the futile pursuit of unreachable goals.

"A lone beachcomber squats among the wrack / Of kaleidoscope shells," adds another layer of melancholy by introducing a solitary figure that scours for fragments of beauty amidst decay. The beachcomber could be seen as a symbol of the human condition: forever seeking meaning or beauty in a world that continuously defies such quests. The "tent of taunting gulls" adds to the bleak atmosphere, as if even nature is mocking the human endeavor to find purpose or beauty.

The next stanza is perhaps the most tragic, stating that "No sea-change decks the sunken shank of bone / That chucks in backtrack of the wave; / Though the mind like an oyster labors on and on, / A grain of sand is all we have." Here, Plath speaks to the futility of human effort to effect any substantial transformation, both in ourselves and in our circumstances. The metaphor of the oyster laboring over a grain of sand might imply that what we often consider significant work or transformation may, in the grand scheme of things, be quite insignificant.

The final stanza serves as a fatalistic acceptance of reality: "Water will run by; the actual sun / Will scrupulously rise and set; / No little man lives in the exacting moon / And that is that, is that, is that." Here, Plath seems to say that nature will go on in its predictable, indifferent cycles, regardless of human hopes, fears, or imaginations.

Overall, "Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Red Sea" acts as a stark meditation on the limitations of human life and imagination. Through vivid imagery and poignant metaphors, Plath lays bare the tension between our dreams and reality, between what we yearn to be and what we are. In doing so, she crafts a poem that is as beautiful as it is bleak, offering a reflection on the complexities of human existence against the backdrop of an indifferent universe.

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...