Hello and welcome to the Discourse. "Full Fathom Five" is a poem by Sylvia Plath that explores themes of death, transformation, and the sea as a symbol of the unconscious. The title references Ariel’s song from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which speaks of a drowned man (Alonso, Ferdinand’s father) undergoing a mystical change beneath the waves. Plath reimagines this imagery, using the ocean to represent both a destructive and regenerative force. The poem is part of Plath’s early work, showcasing her fascination with myth, paternal figures, and psychological depths.
Written in the late 1950s, "Full Fathom Five" reflects Plath’s preoccupation with her father, Otto Plath, who died when she was eight. The sea in the poem symbolizes his haunting presence, both distant and inescapable. Plath often used oceanic imagery to depict the subconscious, influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis and her own emotional turbulence. The poem also draws from mythological and literary traditions, blending personal grief with universal themes of loss and metamorphosis.
Fathom is a unit of measurement primarily used to gauge water depth, equivalent to approximately six feet (1.8 meters). In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Ariel’s line—"Full fathom five thy father lies"—refers to a depth of five fathoms (about 30 feet), where the drowned body undergoes a mystical transformation. Plath borrows this imagery, infusing it with personal and psychological meaning, as the sea becomes a metaphor for the depths of memory, grief, and the unconscious.
A central theme in "Full Fathom Five" is the duality of death and rebirth. The drowned figure, like Shakespeare’s Ferdinand, undergoes a sea-change, suggesting that destruction leads to transformation. The poem also explores the tension between presence and absence, as the speaker grapples with a paternal figure who is both gone and eternally looming. Additionally, the sea represents the unconscious mind—a realm of suppressed memories and emotions. Plath’s use of dense, rhythmic language creates a hypnotic effect, mirroring the relentless pull of the ocean and the inescapable past.
Through its rich symbolism and emotional intensity, "Full Fathom Five" exemplifies Plath’s ability to intertwine personal anguish with mythic resonance, foreshadowing the confessional style of her later work.
Structure of Full Fathom Five:
The poem employs a free verse structure that mimics the ebb and flow of the sea, reinforcing its central themes of depth, transformation, and the unconscious. "Full Fathom Five" consists of 15 stanzas, each with three lines (tercets). The poem is structured in a somewhat traditional format, with the first and last lines of each stanza rhyming, while the middle three lines do not. Plath uses enjambment to sustain a sense of fluid motion, while abrupt pauses and caesuras introduce tension, mirroring the ocean’s unpredictable nature. Though the poem lacks a strict meter, it carries a loose iambic undertone, with occasional shifts to trochaic and anapestic rhythms, enhancing its tidal cadence. Sound devices like alliteration ("Father, not father"), assonance, and sibilance ("sea’s green slaughter") contribute to its hypnotic, incantatory quality, blurring the line between lament and invocation.
The speaker of the poem is ambiguous, oscillating between a personal confessional voice and a mythic narrator. The tone is reverent yet conflicted, addressing a drowned paternal figure—possibly Plath’s deceased father, Otto Plath, or a symbolic sea deity. Lines like "Old man, you surface seldom" suggest a haunting presence, while "You defy questions" conveys frustration and unresolved grief. The speaker’s voice merges Shakespearean allusion (Ariel’s song from The Tempest) with intimate sorrow, weaving together universal myth and personal trauma. This duality reflects Plath’s broader poetic style, where private anguish is elevated through archetypal imagery.
Summary of Full Fathom Five:
Line 1-3
“Old man, you surface seldom.
Then you come in with the tide’s coming
When seas wash cold, foam-”
These opening lines introduce the central figure of the poem—an elusive, paternal presence associated with the sea. The speaker addresses an "old man" who appears rarely, emerging only with the tide, suggesting a ghostly, cyclical return. The imagery of cold, foaming seas evokes both a literal ocean and a psychological landscape—the "old man" (likely representing Plath’s deceased father, Otto Plath) is a spectral memory that resurfaces unpredictably, tied to emotional turbulence. The "old man" is a fleeting presence, surfacing only intermittently, emphasizing unresolved grief. The tide’s movement mirrors the involuntary return of repressed memories. The "cold, foam-" suggests emotional detachment, as if the father-figure remains just out of reach. Alliteration in "surface seldom," "cold, foam" – the soft *s* and *f* sounds mimic the hiss of receding waves.
Lines 4-6
“Capped: white hair, white beard, far-flung,
A dragnet, rising, falling, as waves
Crest and trough. Miles long”
These lines deepen the father’s mythic stature—no longer just a memory, he becomes a primordial force, vast and cyclical. The speaker depicts the "old man" as a vast, spectral figure—his white hair and beard merging with the sea foam, while his presence stretches like a "dragnet" across the ocean. The imagery suggests both a godlike patriarch and an inescapable force, rising and falling with the waves. The description evokes a being who is simultaneously ancient (white hair/beard) and omnipresent ("miles long"), blurring the boundaries between human, myth, and nature. The "old man" transcends human form, becoming an elemental power tied to the sea’s rhythms. The dragnet imagery implies that his influence is inescapable, pulling the speaker into memory. The rising/falling motion mirrors the tides, suggesting eternal recurrence—the past is never truly buried.
The father’s hair and beard are likened to a "dragnet" (Metaphor), transforming him into both a fisherman and the sea itself, ensnaring the speaker in memory. "Miles long" (Hyperbole) exaggerates his scale, emphasizing his overwhelming presence in the speaker’s psyche.
Lines 7-9
“Extend the radial sheaves
Of your spread hair, in which wrinkling skeins
Knotted, caught, survives”
These lines intensify the mythical transformation of the paternal figure, depicting his hair as vast, radiating "sheaves" (bundles, Metaphor) that stretch across the sea like sunbeams or tangled nets. The "wrinkling skeins" suggest both the wrinkles of age and the knotted, labyrinthine nature of memory—what is "knotted, caught" in these strands "survives," implying that the past is preserved yet ensnared in the depths. The imagery evokes a paradoxical blend of vitality and entrapment, where the father’s presence is both a lifeline and a snare.
Lines 10-12
“The old myth of origins
Unimaginable. You float near
As keeled ice-mountains”
These lines confront the impossibility of fully grasping the father’s mythic presence ("The old myth of origins / Unimaginable"). The speaker acknowledges the limits of understanding his true nature, yet he remains viscerally close, floating nearby like "keeled ice-mountains"(metaphor), massive and glacial. The imagery suggests both his looming, immovable influence and his emotional coldness. The "old myth" could refer to paternal authority, ancestral legacy, or even the unknowable depths of the unconscious itself. Despite being "unimaginable," his proximity is undeniable, evoking a paradox: he is at once incomprehensible and inescapable. "The old myth of origins" (allusion) may nod to creation myths, Freudian primal father theories, or literary archetypes (e.g., Poseidon, God the Father).
Lines 13-15
“Of the north, to be steered clear
Of, not fathomed. All obscurity
Starts with a danger:”
In these lines, the speaker warns of the peril lurking in the father's icy, northern domain—a place to be avoided ("steered clear / Of") rather than understood ("not fathomed"). The word obscurity suggests both literal darkness (the depths of the sea) and psychological mystery (the unknowable father). The abrupt declaration—"All obscurity / Starts with a danger:"—frames ambiguity itself as a threat, implying that what cannot be seen or understood may be destructive. The father’s realm is thus marked by both physical and emotional peril, a space where clarity dissolves into hazard.
Lines 16-18
“Your dangers are many. I
Cannot look much but your form suffers
Some strange injury”
These lines crystallize the poem’s central conflict: the father is a source of danger, yet the speaker’s inability to face him fully only deepens his enigmatic power. The "strange injury" could reflect Plath’s own struggle to reconcile her father’s memory—mythologizing him risks distorting him, while ignoring him leaves his influence unchecked. The gaze here becomes a metaphor for artistic and emotional reckoning, where the act of representation (through poetry) both wounds and preserves. This aligns with the poem’s Shakespearean undertones: just as Ariel’s song transforms death into something "rich and strange," Plath’s speaker finds that looking at the father alters him irreversibly. The sea, the father, and the poet’s eye are all forces of metamorphosis and destruction.
Lines 19-21
“And seems to die: so vapors
Ravel to clearness on the dawn sea.
The muddy rumors”
These lines extend the poem’s exploration of the father as a shifting, ungraspable force. The dawn sea should bring clarity, yet the "muddy rumors" persist, implying that the speaker’s quest for understanding is doomed to ambiguity. The verb "ravel" (meaning both to tangle and to unravel) captures the paradox of memory—it can simultaneously clarify and distort. This aligns with Plath’s confessional style, where truth is never static but a contested, evolving narrative. The father, like the sea, is a surface that refuses to hold still. The father’s fading is compared (simile) to vapors clearing at dawn, emphasizing his intangibility.
Lines 22-24
“Of your burial move me
To half-believe: your reappearance
Proves rumors shallow,”
These lines distill the poem’s obsession with unresolved loss. The father’s "reappearance" is not resurrection but a haunting—a proof that the rumors of his death are incomplete. The speaker’s "half-belief" reflects Plath’s broader struggle with her father’s absence: Otto Plath is physically gone, yet his influence resurfaces relentlessly. The sea, with its tides and depths, becomes the perfect metaphor for this dynamic, where nothing is ever truly buried. The "shallow" rumors, like the sea’s surface, fail to capture the darker truths beneath. Here, Plath interrogates the stories we tell about the dead—and how those stories inevitably unravel.
Lines 25-27
“For the archaic trenched lines
Of your grained face shed time in runnels:
Ages beat like rains”
These lines elevate the father from a personal ghost to a timeless monument. His face, etched by eons, becomes a site where history accumulates and dissolves—a parallel to the sea’s role as both preserver and destroyer. The "rains" recall the poem’s earlier water imagery but shift from oceanic depths to celestial downpour, expanding the father’s domain from sea to sky. Here, Plath confronts not just her father’s death but time itself, with its dual power to erode and immortalize. The poem’s Shakespearean echoes resurface: if "full fathom five" transforms death into something "rich and strange," these lines transmute grief into geology, where the father’s face is both ruin and relic.
Lines 28-30
“On the unbeaten channels
Of the ocean. Such sage humor and
Durance are whirlpools”
These lines complete the father’s transformation into a natural force—no longer a man but a pattern of currents, at once wise and indifferent. The "unbeaten channels" evoke uncharted psychic depths, while "whirlpools" suggest the vortex of memory, where the speaker is caught between understanding and oblivion. Like Ariel’s song, the father’s legacy is both haunting and a metamorphosis. Yet Plath’s vision is darker; where Shakespeare’s drowned men turn to coral, hers dissolve into whirlpools—a destructive, cyclical force. The ocean, now fully conflated with the father, becomes the final, unreadable text of grief.
Lines 31-33
“To make away with the ground-
Work of the earth and the sky’s ridgepole.
Waist down, you may wind”
These lines depict the father as a destabilizing force who erodes the very foundations of existence ("the ground-work of the earth and the sky’s ridgepole"). The imagery suggests he undermines both terrestrial and celestial order, collapsing boundaries between earth and heaven. The phrase "Waist down, you may wind" implies a serpentine, coiling motion—perhaps evoking a sea monster or mythical serpent (like Jörmungandr) that encircles and disrupts the world. The father’s power is both creative and destructive, unraveling the architecture of reality itself while remaining partially anchored ("Waist down"), as if half-submerged in the primordial depths.
Lines 34-36
“One labyrinthine tangle
To root deep among knuckles, shin-
bones,
Skulls. Inscrutable,”
These lines cement the father’s role as a mythic figure of terror and permanence. The labyrinth—a structure designed to confuse and imprison—reflects the speaker’s psychological entrapment in grief. Yet the bones also suggest archaeological layers, as if the father’s influence is excavated from history itself. The adjective "Inscrutable" (placed ominously after a caesura) underscores the poem’s central conflict: the father can be found (in bones, in memory) but never fathomed. This aligns with Plath’s broader preoccupation with bodily decay and unresolved legacy, where the dead persist not as spirits but as skeletal puzzles, half-buried in the psyche’s uncharted depths.
Lines 37-39
“Below shoulders not once
Seen by any man who kept his head,
You defy questions;”
These lines escalate the father’s mythic horror, positioning him beyond the limits of sight and speech. The warning that no observer "kept his head" suggests that to engage with this memory is to risk psychic disintegration—a theme central to Plath’s work. The headlessness motif ("Below shoulders") mirrors earlier bodily fragments (bones, hair), but here it implies a willful mutilation of understanding. The father’s defiance of questions mirrors the poem’s own struggle: language fails to capture him, just as the sea refuses to surrender its drowned. This aligns with the Freudian uncanny, where the familiar (a father) becomes terrifying precisely because it should be knowable, yet isn’t. The poem thus becomes a paradox: an incantation to summon what cannot be faced, and a lament for what cannot be mourned.
Lines 40-42
“You defy godhood.
I walk dry on your kingdom’s border
Exiled to no good.”
In this penultimate stanza, the speaker acknowledges the father’s supremacy—he "defies godhood", suggesting he surpasses even divine authority, existing beyond worship or comprehension. The speaker, meanwhile, exists in a liminal space: "I walk dry on your kingdom’s border", neither fully immersed in his realm nor free of it. The phrase "Exiled to no good" conveys a futile, purgatorial state—banished but without redemption or purpose. The father’s "kingdom" (likely the sea or subconscious) is a domain the speaker cannot enter or escape, leaving her stranded in a barren middle ground.
Lines 43-45
“Your shelled bed I remember.
Father, this thick air is murderous.
I would breathe water.”
These closing lines from "Full Fathom Five" reveal a haunting shift in the speaker's relationship with the father's submerged presence. The "shelled bed" suggests both the ocean floor where he resides and a protective/constricting enclosure, like a mollusk's calcified home. The direct address—"Father"—marks a rare moment of vulnerable confrontation, where the speaker declares the atmosphere of the living world ("this thick air") to be "murderous", implying that existence above the father's realm is suffocating and unbearable. The shocking final line—"I would breathe water"—inverts the natural order, expressing a suicidal longing to join him in death's aqueous silence rather than endure the oppressive weight of life.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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