COMPARISON

Compare and Contrast of Two Poems

Compare and Contrast of Two Poems

The paper presents comparison of two poems: "mushrooms” by Sylvia Plath and "If we must die" by Claude McKay. “Mushrooms” the poem by Sylvia Plath is from her first major published collection: “The Colossus and Other Poems.” It is a fine example of her work, with the use of alliteration, assonance, symbolism, internal rhyme and repetition. This obsessive compulsive's delight is written with the sharp clean structured precision of a surgeon. At first glance “Mushrooms” has all the trademarks of the perfect terrorist broadcast al-Qa'iada would aspire to have read out by Osama Bin-Laden to cast fear in the hearts of their enemies, with its quietly menacing slow yet rhythmic flow. (Although one feels that if the Taliban had used a similar message, I would be well on my way to studying the Koran!) Like many poems it can be interpreted in countless different ways; with 'Mushrooms, ' Plath has merged several ideas (the Cold War, the atom bomb, depression to name but a few) into a single theme. The main themes being that of the upcoming rise of Woman's rights with 'We are shelves, we are Tables,' highlighting the view held by men in society at that time of women as purely domestic objects and it is also laced with echoes of the birth of her first child.

On the other hand there is a sonnet entitled "If We Must Die." It was the most recent of all. Great events had occurred between the time when I had first met Frank Harris and my meeting with Max Eastman. The World War had ended. But its end was a signal for the outbreak of little wars between labor and capital and, like a plague breaking out in some places, between colored folk and white.

Our Negro newspapers were morbid, full of details of clashes between colored and white, murderous shootings and hangings. Traveling from city to city and unable to gauge the attitude and temper of each one, we Negro railroad men were nervous. We were less light-hearted. We did not separate from one another gaily to spend ourselves in speakeasies and gambling joints. We stuck together, some of us armed, going from the railroad station to our quarters. We stayed in our quarters all through the dreary ominous nights, for we never knew what was going to happen.

'Overnight, very whitely, discretely' resembles the sensation (or rather lack thereof) of the moment of conception. The use of the Mushroom metaphor fits perfectly with the image of a pregnant woman. 'Nobody sees us, Stops us' remarks on the two things, the fact that it is often not until late into the pregnancy that it becomes obvious that one is pregnant and two, babies have a habit of slipping past us unnoticed. 'Soft fists' is surely alluding to the kicks the mother feels during pregnancy. 'Earless and eyeless, perfectly voiceless,' is another beautiful reference to the growing ...