Sylvia Plath's Dark Water Journey Toward Silence and Death
The poem uses black, funereal imagery of a lake and boat to argue that beauty and darkness coexist in a landscape saturated with death and silence.
Black lake, black boat, two black, cut-paper people. Where do the black trees go that drink here? Their shadows must cover Canada.
A little light is filtering from the water flowers Their leaves do not wish us to hurry: They are round and flat and full of dark advice. Cold words shake from the oar. The spirit of blackness is in us, it is in the fishes. A snag is lifting a valedictory, pale hand; Stars opening among the lilies. Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens? This is the silence of abandoned souls.
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