Fever 103° by Sylvia Plath
The poem, Fever 103° was composed by Sylvia Plath in 1962. It first appeared in the magazine Poetry in 1965. It was later on published in the collection of poems entitled Ariel.
Summary of Fever 103°
Fever 103°begins with the question; what is purity? It, then discusses the ineffectiveness of Hellish fire to put mankind on the path of virtue and purity. The tongues of dull are as ineffective as the three tongues of dull and fat Cerberus the three headed monster guarding the gate of Hell. This act of purity can be better performed by fever, because all the nerves and veins of the body will cease to function for running actions.
At this time Plath looks at the rising smoke from the candle. The smoke reminds her of Isadora who was a great dancer of England. She was so expert that the dancer and the dance melded into one. Her dance was a lyric a mistick woman of a realized unity. Yeats has also appreciated the dance of two great American women dancer Loie Fuller and Isadora Duncan. In this poem, the speaker is like Isadora to begin a poem Fever 103°, with the quarrel what is purity. The speaker says that the fever is so high that she cannot act freely through the fever that the speaker can attain purity.
“Pure? What does it mean?
The tongues of hell
Are dull, dull as the triple
Tongues of dull, fat Cerberus
Who wheezes at the gate. Incapable
Of licking clean
The aguey tendon, the sin, the sin.
The tinder cries.
The indelible smell.”
In the next four stanzas Sylvia Plath refers to her death wish just as she should had die asphyxiation – similarly Plath also feels separate of death. The four stanzas given ahead give us the fearful state of the mind of Sylvia Plath :
“Of a snuffed candle !
Love, love, the low smokes roll
From me like Isadora’s scarves, I’m in a fright
One scarf will catch and anchor in the wheel.
Such yellow sullen smokes
Make their own element. They will not rise,
But trundle round the globe
Choking the aged and the meek
The weak
Hothouse baby in its crib,
The ghastly orchid
Hanging its hanging garden in the air.”
In the next four stanzas Sylvia Plath describes how seriously she had been suffering from high fever. She has been quite rested in the sick bed for the last three days and three nights. She has been almost fasting and drinking lemon water and nothing else.
“Devilish leopard!
Radiation turned it white
And killed it in an hour.
Greasing the bodies of adulterers
Like Hiroshima ash and eating in
The sin. The sin.
Darling, all night
I have been flickering, off, on, off, on
The sheets grow heavy as a lecher’s kiss.
Three days. Three nights.
Lemon water, chicken
Water, water make me retch.”
In the above stanza she is thinking that it is high fever that has made her cure even the fires of hell cannot purify the speaker even a lecher who comes to kiss her will not given her any joy, her sheet will become heavier with a kiss her temperature is rising and falling. Loveless and love making in marriage might be worse choice than adultery an affirmation of life Plath also remembers the tragedy of Hiroshima where million people burnt to death by dropping of atom bombs.
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In the next three stanzas, Plath describes that she is free from worldly attachment and she feels that she is the purest woman of anyone The persons of this world hurt her as they hurt God. Now she is a lantern which gives light to other and her head is a moon. She feels that by high fever she has been made quite pure.
“I am too pure for you or anyone
Your body
Hurts me as the world hurts God. I am a lantern-
My head a moon
Of Japanese paper, my gold beaten skin
Infinitely delicate and infinitely expensive.
Does not my heat astound you. And my light
All by myself I am a huge camellia
Glowing and coming and going, flush on flush.”
In the above stanza she (Plath) wonders whether her fever or her carnal needs which make her body heavy and hot have not yet convinced her husband of its reality. Now after this fever, Plath has become growing like an evergreen flower. She feels like growing, now glowing and canaing. In the last three stanzas of the poem she feels that she is going up to meet God, she is like a light gas that is industrial used to cut metals. After this fever she feels she will reincarnate.
“I think I am going up,
I think I may rise-
The beads of hot metal fly, and I love, I
Am a pure acetylene
Virgin
Attended by roses,
By kisses, by cherubim,
By whatever these pink things mean,
Not you, nor him
Not him, nor him
(My selves dissolving, old whore petticoats) —
To Paradise.”
Conclusion
Certainly Sylvia Plath is talking up a crisis in this poem. This crisis radiates outwards from the innermost centres of a niggling and immediate concern of the speaker with her own health to the pressing issues of matrimony and husband-wife relationship to ever larger matters like the relationship of human health and ever social relationship with ecology, environment, history, philosophy and religion. Illness, decay aging, dirt, corruption, pollution, moral lapse, taboo, sensuality, sin all these are associated in Fever 103° with the materiality of the body and “purity” “lightness” with rarefaction and the “ascendancy” of the spirit over matter.
Line by Line Analysis
Stanza 1
Sylvia Plath begins the poem with the question ‘What is purity?’
Purity? What is the meaning of this word ? The fires of hell
are quite useless for making one pure.
Stanza 2
The tongues of Cerberus (a monster with three heads and three tongues) is not able of making people quite pure.
Stanza 3
Sylvia Plath is suffering from high fever and a candle which is off is a religious smoke.
Stanza 4
Sylvia Plath says the smoke of the candle which is moving in circles has made me one with me.
She is very much afraid that she will pass away soon.
She is reminded of the atomic smokes which will surround a whole world.
Stanza 5
The smoke of the atomic bombs will kill the old man and the weak person.
Stanza 6
The smokes will kill small babies in their cradle.
Stanza 7
These poison gases of the Atom will kill thousands of persons.
Stanza 8
Thousands of sinners will be done away with. Just as Hiroshima bombing had ended the lives of million.
Stanza 9
Sylvia Plath has been suffering from high fever organized.
She is like a candle whose light is going up and down. The bedsheets have become heavier with her tears.
Stanza 10
She has been in high fever three days and three nights. I have lived on lemon water and chicken.
Only water has made me miserable.
Stanza 11
I am quite pure for you (Ted) or anybody. People hurt me as the world hurt god.
I am like a lantern which gives light to itself.
Stanza 12
My head is a moon
My gold coloured skin is quite soft and very expensive.
Stanza 13
My fever much surprised you
And my light is like a evergreen flower.
I think I am going up to paradise
I think I may rise to the level of heaven
On my forehead there are drops of sweat. Even then I love.
Stanza 14
I am a pure that- which cuts iron.
I am a pure woman attended by roses
In spite of everything I am going to paradise.
EXPLANATION
“Pure? What does it mean?
The tongues of hell
Are dull, dull as the triple
Tongues of dull, fat Cerberus
Who wheezes at the gate. Incapable
Of licking clean”
Context
This is the first stanza taken from the famous poem Fever 103° composed by Sylvia Plath in 1962. This poem is the best example of Plath’s confession. She openly confesses her carnal passions and her strong desire for purity. The poem is written with background of high fever of under 103° when she was half conscious in almost in a state of delirium.
Explanation
These two stanzas may be better explained together. The first stanza begins with the question with purity “What is purity?” The first three lines contain the answer that the tongues (fire) of hell are too weak to purify the sinner the fat dog Cerberus to guiders the waits of travel. He cannot lick the sin of the sinner clean. The three headed dog cannot lick clean the muscles and bones of the sinner. The human sinners are too dense and too tough to be purified. Sylvia Plath is full of pain and fever even the candle is not burning and it is releasing smoke and smell.
Comments
- Cerberus is three headed dog who guides the gates of hell
- Triple Tongues are the three tongues of Cerberus.
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