The Sow

In Sylvia Plaths poem the Sow, the fascinated cashier describes his encounter with his neighbors hog for the startle cadence. Sylvia Plath uses diction and allusions to describe the sow from the narrators perspective. The poem also features an bearing shift towards the prey from this mysterious prize to this disappointing cop. The poem starts turned with an aura of mystery. She describes the neighbors behavior using words and phrases exchangeable shrewd secret and impounded from public stare. You can tell that the neighbor is nerve-wracking to hide his ribbon win pig from the public and that he is very proud of his pig. The narrator is very curious as to what this ribbon winning pig looks like. He is so curious to the point that he is commended to fall upon his way through the lantern-lit maze of barns to see this pig. When he sees the pig for the first time the mood of the poem shifts. When he sees the pig for the first time he, its not what he had expected.He says this was no rose-and-larkspurred china which implies the imperfections he finds with the pig. As he begins to describe the pig, his tone changes from wonder to pity for the pig. He describes the pig as a Brobdingnag bulk to describe how big this pig is by comparing it to the giants that live in Jonathan Swifts book Gullivers Travels. He sees this pig as this fat pig that can barely move, and is slowly decompose away, on that black compost, fat-rutted eyes dream filled.He also compares the pig to an our marvel blazoned a knight, helmed, in cuirass, unhorsed and shredded in the grove of struggle by a grisly-bristled boar. He sees the fat of the pig as armor and its scars as to those of battle wounds. Sylvia Plath was able to show the different thoughts the narrator has of his neighbors pig. She is able to show us how the narrator thinks that this pig is this magnificent creature even though its not. Through diction, comparisons, and allusions Sylvia Plath is able to show us what the na rrator is seeing and feeling though out the poem.