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.
Sylvia uses mushrooms as a way to talk about the equality of women in society and focusing on oppression and women’s traditional roles. The mushrooms are on this journey, nothing can stop them for growing even though they go through troubling times. Connecting this to The Friday Everything Changed, the girls want equality in their classroom, the mushrooms represent them and they go through hard, troubling, painful experiences but they stay strong. The poem says “Nudgers and shovers In spite of ourselves our kind multiplies.” Connecting this to the book, the nudgers and shovers are the boys, tearing the girls down but the girls multiply, more believe in their ideas about equality of women. “We shall by morning Inherit the earth. Our foot’s in the door.” Talks about the beginning of change and the beginning of the girls way to equality in the classroom.
Jenna – good analysis overall – but I think think the nudgers and shovers are the women who are ‘nudging’ – connotation – inch by inch – towards change; sometimes the push to change is a shove….