Imagery As A Roadmap in “Parliament Hill Fields”

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illustrate. As the “new year hones its edge” a transitionary period is taking place not only on a calendar, but also in the Poet’s life. The world seems to go on around her in spite of her, and “nobody can tell what [she] lacks,” because she wears the loss so “inconspicuously.” But inside her mind is a different story as the next five lines serve to demonstrate. The gulls are an important image not only to this part of the poem, but to the poem as a whole. The words Plath uses to describe them are very important. The gulls do not sing or speak as some other poet’s might say, but to Plath they “argue.” They do not wander or play, but instead they are “stirring.” The gulls in the riverbed are not delightful or pleasant, but instead are eyesores like “brown paper.” All of these descriptions create a strong mental image of a frantic scene. These gulls are a symbol for the state of her mind at the beginning of the poem. In her mind is a mishmash of thoughts ranging from hopelessness to ...

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the poet looks “Southward, over Kentish Town, an ashen smudge” and cannot distinguish the landscape. “It could be a snowfield or a cloudbank,” she says. This imagery conveys a feeling of fading out, and the next few lines are a transition to a scene within a scene.
As the poet begins to realize it is “pointless to think of you at all,” and the memory’s “doll grip lets go,” an image unfolds that is improbable and therefore wholly in the poet’s mind. Plath describes a “tumulus” that “even at noon, guards its black shadow.” At the noon hour nothing - even a grave - should have a shadow. The shadow is not a real one but serves to illustrate the foreboding nature of her grief. ...

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