Write a Note on the Use of Symbols and Images in “Crossing the Water.”

Answer

Write a note on the use of symbols and images in “Crossing the Water.”

Sylvia Plath’s poem Crossing the Water is short but very rich in meaning. She fills the poem with strong images and symbols. The whole poem looks like a painting of nature, but inside it carries deep feelings of fear, silence, and death. On the surface, it shows two people in a boat. Under the surface, the images become symbols of the speaker’s troubled mind.

Blackness: The poem begins with the line:

“Black lake, black boat, two black, cut-paper people.”

Plath repeats the word black many times. This repeated blackness is the main image of the poem. Black stands for sadness, fear, and danger. Even the people look black and flat like cut paper. This image shows that the travelers feel lifeless and fragile. The scene looks empty and cold. The black trees that “drink here” have huge shadows. Plath writes that their shadows “must cover Canada.” This image tells us the darkness spreads very far. It is not a small worry. It is a great, wide sadness that covers everything.

Water-flowers and Little Light: Amid the blackness, a small light appears:

“A little light is filtering from the water flowers.”

This light is a small hope. But the leaves of the flowers “do not wish us to hurry.” They are “round and flat and full of dark advice.” Here, the light is not comforting. The leaves seem to warn and slow the travelers. The image of the leaves giving “dark advice.” It means that little hope does not give the speaker any comfort.

Blackness and Pale Hand: The poet says,

“The spirit of blackness is in us, it is in the fishes.”

This image makes the blackness internal. Darkness is not only outside the boat; it is also inside the travelers and inside nature. A dead tree branch in the water lifts a “pale