"Dream With Clam-Diggers"
This dream budded bright with leaves around the edges,
Its clear air winnowed by angels; she was come
Back to her early sea-town home
Scathed, stained after tedious pilgrimages.
Barefoot, she stood, in shock of that returning,
Beside a neighbor's house
With shingles burnished as glass,
Blinds lowered on that hot morning.
No change met her: garden terrace, all summer
Tanged by melting tar,
Sloped seaward to plunge in blue; fed by white fire,
The whole scene flared welcome to this roamer.
High against heaven, gulls went wheeling soundless
Over tidal-flats where three children played
Silent and shining on a green rock bedded in mud,
Their fabulous heyday endless.
With green rock gliding, a delicate schooner
Decked forth in cockle-shells,
They sailed till tide foamed round their ankles
And the fair ship sank, its crew knelled home for dinner.
Plucked back thus sudden to that far innocence,
She, in her shabby travel garb, began
Walking eager toward water, when there, one by one,
Clam-diggers rose up out of dark slime at her offense.
Grim as gargoyles from years spent squatting at sea's border
In wait amid snarled weed and wrack of wave
To trap this wayward girl at her first move of love,
Sylvia Plath: Poem and Analysis
"Dream With Clam-Diggers"Analysis
This poem is about a dream. Sylvia Plath wrote this poem about a dream or personal experienced, influencing the setting of this poem. This is a tale about a woman traveling back to her hometown in Winthrop, Massachusetts. This is Plath’s hometown where. The woman goes to the beach upon her arrival. The woman is illustrated as exhausted, and is tired from her long journey. This is symbolic of possibly going out into the real world and growing up? While the woman is at the beach, She’s begins to remember playing by the shore as a child and begins to think about how innocent her childhood was. This is symbolic of Plath reminiscing of how simple and innocent childhood in her hometown is. The woman is dropping rocks in the ocean and thinking about how ships sink in the same way. The childhood feelings are recalled by the actions of the woman playing in the ocean and then being called home for dinner. This may be symbolic of The Leaving the innocents of childhood behind and entering the life of a grown woman. Once again the woman will return to the ocean. This time will be different as she will be stopped by the clam diggers. This is symbolic of a sign that no one can return to the simple beliefs of childhood. Also the feeling of being trapped by clam diggers, is symbolic of the woman’s mental punishment for thinking the world could be full of good things. As a result of tragedy or some misfortune, the woman will not allow herself to be emotionally available. This may be symbolic of how the woman closes herself off from others so she won't have to let herself feel. She's wishing for the past when life could be very simple and actions like throwing rocks in the water didn't have consequences.
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