The Moon (Symbol)
The moon in this poem both symbolizes and rejects traditional notions of maternity. It is compared to a “mother” (Line 17), but unlike the proverbial mother figure (e.g., “Mary,” Line 17) it does not offer any sense of care, warmth, or “tenderness” (Line 19). Plath may also be drawing from non-Christian feminizations of the moon, such as the Greco-Roman moon goddess Cynthia. In other poems by Plath, e.g., “The Munich Mannequins” and “The Rival,” the moon is a symbol of the female body and its cycles.
The Yew Tree (Symbol)
The yew tree traditionally symbolizes death and rebirth, and is often found in church graveyards. In this poem, the tree not only represents death, “blackness,” and “silence” (Line 28), but is also a phallic image that “points up” (Line 15) and reaches toward the (un)motherly moon. For this reason, some readings of this poem equate the yew tree to Plath’s father (who passed away when Plath was young), the moon to her mother.
Colors (Motif)
The colors white, black, and blue recur throughout the poem. The whiteness of the moon—suggesting pallor, fear, and hostility (“White as a knuckle and terribly upset,” Line 9)—contrasts with the ominous blackness of the graveyard “trees” (Line 2), the yew tree (Line 28), and the sea (“a dark crime,” Line 10). The color blue plays a more flexible and complex role in this poem, found in the “light” of the speaker’s mind (Line 2), the “garments” (Line 18) of the night sky, the flowering “[c]louds” (Line 22), and the images of “saints” (Line 24) in the church. Traditionally symbolizing the Virgin Mary, yet associated with the sinister moon in this poem, the color blue also becomes a site of contradiction. Blue is a “mystical” (Line 23) shade that both unites and separates images, that connects the speaker’s mind to her surroundings as well as highlights their incongruity.
Biblical Figures (Allegory, Motif)
Christian narratives, especially those from the New Testament, are used allegorically and subversively. The moon is portrayed as a perverse “Mary” (Line 17) that, unlike the mother of Jesus Christ, fails to fulfill traditional expectations of motherly affection and care, and even lets loose “small bats and owls” (Line 18) that evoke Biblical portrayals of the Devil. The church bells merely “affirm[] the Resurrection” (Line 13) ritualistically rather than wholeheartedly celebrating Christ’s rise from the dead. The “saints” (Line 24) in the church aspire toward “Mary” (even mimicking the “blue” of her garments), but the moon disregards their devotion and “holiness” (Line 26).
The speaker occupies a precarious position in this web of parodied Biblical allegories. While a child and worshipper of “Mary,” she is also venerated as a godlike figure herself: “The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God” (Line 3), the speaker observes, later mirroring this image with that of the deferent saints in the church. Perhaps the speaker is a failed Virgin Mary herself. Or does she play a Christlike role in this poem, as both an incarnation of God and a child of Mary? (Might the paternal yew tree suggest the carpenter Joseph, Mary’s husband and Jesus’s mortal father?) Is she instead, like the bats and owls, a Satanic figure who has “fallen a long way” (Line 22) into spiritual darkness?
