Monthly Archives: February 2016

Mushrooms             Sylvia Plath

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot’s in the door.

This poem is a metaphor for how women in the 50s were oppressed. In “The Friday Everything Changed” the women and girls were given specific gender roles and told to stick to them, to be well-mannered and polite. The characters in this story agreed with these ideas until a girl named Alma questioned them. Up until this point, no one really noticed the women unless they were looking for them. The women then were told to be “bland-mannered, asking little or nothing, ” They were not necessarily seen as people, but objects.  “We are shelves, we are Tables, we are meek,” Shelves and tables are needed in our everyday lives, but they are often treated without great importance. They’re just expected to be there.  Women were always “Perfectly voiceless, Widen the crannies, Shoulder through holes.” Women would get small opportunities to further promote the idea of equality. It takes time to change the way that people lived, the change couldn’t happen so quickly. We are trying to go against tradition and reset the way of living. “We shall by morning, Inherit the earth, Our foot’s in the door.” But surely, women will be able to obtain equality because they are progressing.