Sylvia Plath's poem "Ariel" expresses the poet's desire to be liberated. It can be read literally as describing riding a horse named Ariel, or metaphorically as experiencing unity with the horse. On a biographical level, Ariel was Plath's favorite horse that she rode weekly, and the poem depicts willingly accepting the ride into nothingness, reflecting Plath's own desire for self-destruction. The poem uses vivid imagery and references to portray the horse's power and strength, as well as the speaker's growing sense of empowerment, as she sheds constraints on her life. Formal elements like rhyme and structure build pace and signal shifts in the increasingly intense themes.

1. IB Lit - Ariel - Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath’s ‘Ariel’, is an ambiguous but similarly powerful poem that expresses the poet’s desire to be
liberated. The first half of the poem can be seen as exact reporting of what it is like to ride a horse,
whereas the second half partakes in a mystery whereby the rider experiences something of the unity
which is created between horse and rider, if not literally, at least metaphorically. On an autobiographical
level, "Ariel," as we know from reports about Plath’s life, was the name of her favorite horse, on whom
she weekly went riding and by the end of the poem the speaker willingly accepts this ride into
nothingness which can also be perceived as Plath’s own desire for self-destruction or suicide.
The poem comprises a number of beautiful images of the poet riding her beloved Ariel along this plain. In
line 4, the poet asserts the horse as being “God’s lioness”, portraying it as heavenly divine as well as
impressive and enthralling. In line 6, she remarks upon the “furrow” or deep trenches the horse leaves
behind demonstrating the sheer magnitude of the horse as it welcomes and envelopes the ground which is
treads upon. In line 10, she describes the berries that can be found in this landscape as “Nigger-eye” in
colour, emphasising its ripeness the fruits thus evoking an appetite in the reader. In line 16, the poet
describes how the horse “Hauls [her] through the air”, and the use of the material verb “haul” emphasises
the vigorous movement of the horse as well as the thrill of the experience. Both the speaker and horse
share an unfailing bond, as evidenced in line 5 where she exclaims: “How one we grow”, demonstrating
just how much the two are inextricably linked.
Throughout the poem, there are a number of references to female power and poet’s own sense of
empowerment. In line 19, she alludes to Godiva, who is of course the legendary figure who rode on a
horse naked in rebellion to her husband’s raising of taxes; both she and the speaker share two things in
common: the first being that they are both horse riders, but more importantly is that they both take an
action that is frowned upon by society, which is also emphasised in the following line where the voice
remarks: “I unpeel dead hands, dead stringencies”, the concreteness of "hands" gives way to the
abstractness of "stringencies" which represent the confinements she’s been victim of: both the physical
and psychological aspects of the self have died and are pared away,which is reinforced by the use of the
material verb “unpeel” as it illustrates the vigor in which this act of self-liberation follows.
Colour is a perennial motif that the poet makes ample use of. In the second line of the first stanza, the
poet opens the poem by describing the sky as a “substanceless blue” which “Pour of tor and distances”,
this opening ensconces the reader into a profoundly idyllic and epic setting in which the speaker is to ride
her equally impressive horse. More powerful visual imagery can be seen in lines 11-13 where she
describes the juice of the “Nigger-eye berries” as “Black sweet blood mouthfuls”, the sensuousness
prescribed to the taste of the fruits portray them as being temptingly delicious and the fact that the speaker
of the poem consigns them to category of “Shadows”, things which threaten the vision and power of her
creative surge, as well as describes them as being “hooks”, suggests that indulging them would impede
her from completing this journey.
Pace is built through rhyme and the poem’s structure. Up to the seventh stanza of the poem, the rhyme
scheme has been, for the most part, regular in terms of the half-rhymes. Each stanza has two lines which
rhyme: "darkness" / "distance," "grow" / "furrow," "arc" / "catch," "dark". However,as the poem becomes

2. increasingly intense, there is break from this regular terza rima pattern. In line 18 just before it becomes
clear that the speaker has embarked upon a self-destructing journey, “heels” is made to rhyme with
“unpeel” in the supplementary stanza and “seas” of the following stanza is made to rhyme with
“stringencies”. The unity of the poem as a whole has thus been maintained while the shift in its theme is
signaled both thematically and structurally by a shift in the rhyme scheme. "Pour of tor and distances,"
"Pivot of heels and knees," of the first and second stanzas, and "Of the neck I cannot catch."of the third
stanza have an internal rhyme ("pour" / "tor") or the alliteration ("cannot catch") or the assonance ("heels
and knees"), which creates a kind of music which takes the place of exact or even half-rhyme. The very
fact that the stanzas are tri-fold parallels the tri-fold allusions to the horse’s movement. The stanzaic
structure as well as the structure of the individual stanzas corroborates the theme of the poem.