Severe depression and love are not often considered interchangeable. However, Sylvia Plath wrote a poem titled “Mad Girl’s Love Song”, published in 1953. Upon first read it seems as if the speaker has gone mad with longing for her lover. However, an alternate perspective is that this poem is about her depression. This theory is supported by the fact that in the same year of its publication, Sylvia Plath attempts to commit suicide and is eventually diagnosed with depression and put through electroconvulsive therapy. This “love song” details not the missing presence of a lover, but of the woman that the poet once was before her depression became unbearable. She develops a speaker, possibly more unstable than Plath herself, to present this story of a woman driven insane and longing for a return to reality. Sylvia Plath presents the idea of perception versus reality in her poem “Mad Girl’s Love Song” using bizarre diction, the villanelle structure, and an interesting choice of punctuation marks to show what it is like to have a mental illness but still desire the return of her sanity, to view the world differently than society.

Sylvia Plath sets the tone for her poem by using the word “mad” in her title. In this case, the word does not mean angry, but instead “insane” and establishes the speaker of the poem as someone unstable and untrustworthy in their descriptions. The rest of the poem is followed by the speaker using whimsical and bizarre diction. For instance, the third stanza uses the words “bewitched” and “moon-struck” to describe an interaction that the speaker has “dreamed.” Bewitched is technically defined as to enchant or cast a spell. The connotation is not far from the denotation and brings to the reader’s mind the image of witch and magic. Using “bewitched” then enhances the use of “moon-struck” and its whimsical connotation. Witches are typically associated with nature and the night. Later, the speaker references a thunderbird, which is an allusion to the North American myth. The lines read, “I should have loved a thunderbird instead;/ At least when spring comes they roar back again.” The phrasing suggests that the speaker truly believes this mythical creature will return before the person she used to be will. It can be read literally in this sense, which serves to prove that she truly does not have a grasp on reality, or it can be read figuratively, which still implies that she knows she will never be who she once was, because that person doesn’t exist, just like the bird. This imagery created by the words shows the bizarre and outlandish feelings that the speaker is experiencing in her dreams as she speaks to the addressee, her sane persona. In using this kind of diction, Sylvia Plath is supporting her claim that this speaker is mad, consumed with outlandish hope that her sanity will return. This also helps in developing Plath’s comment on perception versus reality because the scenes she uses to describe her life are odd as the second stanza suggests with “The stars go waltzing out in blue and red.” The audience, and perhaps even the addressee, knows that stars don’t dance, nor are they colored blue and red. The speaker sees the world in a chaotic, unusual manner, especially in stanza four when she describes an apocalyptic scene fading. The assumption is that the audience picks up on the exaggerated imagery and its oddities so that Plath can emphasize that the imagery is not simply decoration, but rather state that being “mad” involves perceiving the world as this bizarre, almost overwhelming, place.

Plath’s poem uses the villanelle format and thus the first and third lines of the first stanza are reused as refrains in the following stanzas, each time contributing a new meaning to the stanza. In doing this, she brings about this idea of repetitive, intrusive thoughts. One of her refrains, “(I think I made you up inside my head)”, does an excellent job in helping with this effect. Our speaker is directly stating that she is unsure of the existence of her previous state of mind now. While Sylvia Plath was diagnosed with depression, this line presents an interesting take on one of the symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This shows that she has repetitive and compulsive unwanted thoughts. Thus, she returns consistently to these lines, as if they are thoughts that her mind keeps bringing back. Plath’s use of the villanelle is also impressive because her rhyme scheme is not like typical villanelles. Her villanelle does not follow the traditional ABA rhyme and instead deviates in many places throughout the poem. Breaking away from the traditional method allows Plath to put more emphasis on the idea that the speaker is not traditional, nor logical really. The “mad girl” doesn’t care for making a consistent ABA ABA rhyme scheme, instead her words are meant to be noticed for differing from the pattern because her mentality differs from society’s expectations and standards for the norm. Perhaps Plath wants the audience to consider that the speaker thinks in this manner, mostly correct, but just slightly off. Ultimately, writing in this method and changing the rhyme scheme of the villanelle gives the speaker a noticeable difference from what is expected and shows the audience that living with mental illness is like following the traditions and still feeling flawed and appearing imperfect in society’s standards.

Often, the punctuation in poetry is analyzed for emphasis purposes, however Sylvia Plath makes an interesting choice in putting the whole poem in quotation marks and one of her refrains in parentheses. As the title implies, this is a “love song” for someone, and Plath puts the whole piece in quotations, as if it is being sung or recited to someone else. In theory, the addressee is not a physical person standing in front of the speaker, but the memory of the speaker’s normal life, before being burdened by her insanity. This is Plath’s recollection of her own struggles with depression. Rather than leaving the poem out of quotations and treating it like a dramatic monologue or such, presenting this poem as a song does a few things for Plath’s purpose. Firstly, Plath put this poem in quotations because this poem is addressed to her past self. She is speaking to the person she was before her depression became a permanent fixture in her life and she became “mad.” This is also why she seems to be speaking directly at someone, rather than objectively saying “she” to describe her past self that she wants to become once again. This poem is not a “what if” situation, but rather comes from the perspective of someone who later in life will undergo electroconvulsive therapy for treatment. Secondly, the poem reads as if the speaker is performing for others, her disease is on display for the public and she is purposely allowing them to know what she is thinking about her past. This piece isn’t meant to be perceived as “intruding” into the poet’s personal life. Plath wants the audience to understand that this is for the public to see a depressed person’s perception of the world. With “Satan’s men” and “arbitrary blackness” as the images presented, she is not sugarcoating the life she lives. Along with the quotations, Plath also uses parentheses in one of her refrains. My interpretation of this line includes treating it as an aside, as if in theatre. Since this love song is being performed, the line, “(I think I made you up inside my head)” is not actually meant to be read as if being spoken or sung to the addressee. This line is more for the speaker as they contemplate whether the person they are speaking to is real, if there ever was a time where they were not suffering from insanity. It adds a sense of doubt in the audience whether this speaker can tell the difference between the real world and what they’ve made up. Ending the poem, or song, with this line effectively leaves the audience questioning the entire piece and what parts of the speaker’s song are true and what is just part of their messy perception of the world.

Others will argue that Sylvia Plath wrote this poem to discuss love and longing for a long gone lover, and while this is a valid lens to view the poem, Plath skillfully utilizes a specific structure, mythical and whimsical diction, and particular punctuation to tell the story of her depression and engage the audience to view the difference between her perception of the world and her past life, and reality.

Sylvia Plath’s “Mad Girl’s Love Song”