2 Poems about Dysfunction- 'Child' and 'Balloons' by Sylvia Plath

The poem 'Child' by Silvia Plath seems to be about the happiness of childhood compared to the 'troublous' adulthood. The poem expresses love for a young child and the innocence with which they view the world, the metaphor of a child as a 'stalk without wrinkle' seeming to adhere to this untainted view. Plath seems to be wishing to satisfy a child's (her child's?) sense of wonder and 'fill it with colour and ducks', the following assonance 'the zoo of the new' adding a musical, childhood touch to the first stanza enhancing the happy, almost excited tone of it. In contrast to the optimistic start of the poem, Plath (who struggled with depression) speaks of a troubled life, living a life without light, a 'dark ceiling without a star', her anxiety and distress expressed through the 'wringing of hands'.

A similar idea seems to run throughout ‘Balloons’. The poem creates imagery of a room filled with colourful balloons, ‘globes of thin air, red, green’, ‘taking up half the space’. They are described as ‘soul-animals’, this and other descriptions of their movement (‘trembling’) and the sound similar to the ‘squeak [of] a cat’ giving them a sense of liveliness. The balloons could represent a kind of freedom which Plath wants to attain (hence ‘delighting the heart like wishes’), but which she cannot reach, as seen when the little brother’s unsuccessful attempt to bite through the balloon to the ‘funny pink world’ on the other side. The balloons, similarly to in the other poem could represent the idealistic, imaginative and desirable fantasy-like world envisioned by little children (if slightly alien, hence ‘funny’). These ideas about the world may be falling away for the little brother, who sees ‘a world clear as water’, the idealistic world he used to see falling down, now ‘shred in his little fist’.

Both poems seem to contrast the hopeful, happy views of childhood to the adult world, or maybe (all ideas about childhood aside) they could represent what you wanted out of life with its hopes and dreams compared to how it really turns out.