Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Toastmasters club speech about The Rival: a poem by Sylvia Plath
Today I spoke in our local Toastmasters club about a poem by Sylvia Plath.
The title of the speech is The Rival. Given below is the text of the speech. This is what I wrote about the poem.
Today I am going to be speaking about a poem by American poet and novelist Sylvia plath who was born in 1932 and died in 1963. She lived for only 31 years yet during this time she made exceptional contributions to poetry. The author of several poetry collections, and a few novels she won the Pulitzer prize for her collection of poetry Ariel in the year 1982. The poem The Rival that I am going to be speaking about today belongs to this collection. Sylvia Plath's poems have been described as confessional, brilliant, full of angst and provocative.
A rival is someone with whom you have feelings of rivalry or competition. Being a rival also entails fighting against another human in the same area or for the same things.
The word rival originates with the Latin word rivus. The Latin word rivus means stream. A related word is the Latin word rivalis which means a person using the same stream as another.
The poem starts with a backhanded compliment by the poet to the rival. The poet says if the moon smiled the rival would look like the moon-- beautiful but annihilating. Most poets consider
moonlight ethereal or romantic, and most conventional poetry depict the moon as a heavenly body that appears in the sky in the night casting a glow on earthly life.
Moon lit nights, or the moon appearing as a lantern in the sky etc are conventional ways of describing the moon.
In this poem the poet describes the moon as a light borrower, and annihilating and something that abases it's subjects. The moon is acknowledged as beautiful but also as annihilating and abasing in a way that reminds the poet of the rival.
Sometimes competition or rivalry is polished and subtle. Comparing the rival to the moon helps Sylvia plath also make sure the enmity between the rival and the poet is civilized. Maybe it saved the poet from guilt caused by thinking of someone as one's rival.
That could be the reason the poet compares the rival to the moon- a symbol that is usually associated with notions of the ethereal and celestial.
Comparing the rival to the moon could also mean that the rival was once a friend. But somehow the friendship deteriorated to rivalry. Just as the moon has beautiful and annihilating aspects to it the rival could have friend and enemy aspects to it.
Just as the moon that cast a glow and looked beautiful in the night sky became ridiculous in the day so the rival may have transformed from a friend into an enemy. The poet may be describing the moon as ridiculous in the day time because in the daytime the light from the moon is unnecessary or irrelevant due to sunlight.
The poet may be referring to the idea that the beautiful moon became an annihilating force just as the friend may have turned into a rival for the poet. This could be the notion of frenemy.
The following stanza gives further elucidation to the myriad meanings of the rival. The entire poem is addressed to the rival indirectly.
The reason for rivalry is not divulged. The rivals first gift is making a stone out of everything.
A stone denotes brute force; a person who is insensitive to the feelings of others is often described as a person with a heart made of stone. The rival would have appeared to the poet as such a person. A stone is also considered cold, rough and harsh. This could mean the rival has such an impact on the poet and others.Maybe the poet's plans and dreams were grounded into smithereens by the rival causing the poet to think of the rival as having a stone like impact on the world around the rival and the poet.
(contd in the next post)
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