Explore how Hughes and Plath present the natural world.

Both Plath and Hughes present the natural world as violent, hostile and aggressive - Hughes’ most notable poems with regards to the violence of the natural world are Rain and October Dawn, whilst Plath’s Finnisterre and Full Fathom Five specifically referring to the power and relentlessness of the sea. Her poem Wuthering Heights conveys nature as an oppressive force, similar to Hughes’ imagery of conflict between man and nature as is presented in October Dawn. Furthermore, Hughes’ Wodwo and Plath’s Elm are undeniably similar in their presentation of the narrator’s confusion with reference to nature - however, whilst Wodwo hints at complete lack of knowledge or identity, Elm conveys the narrator’s purposeful disassociation from their identity, which creates a distinct difference in tone between the two poems.

Firstly, in Plath’s poem Finnisterre, the poem presents the impressive and overwhelming force of nature through her use of personification and ominous imagery, particularly when she describes the cliffs and the sea: “Black / Admonitory cliffs, and the sea exploding / With no bottom, or anything on the other side of it, / Whitened by the faces of the drowned.” Firstly, the adjectives “black” and “admonitory” create the sense of the cliffs looming over the narrator in a threatening manner, and suggest that their negative and disconcerting presence is so great as to be unavoidable - the use of colour imagery as created through the use of “black” is particularly telling of the cliffs’ harsh and severe appearance, which creates an uneasy tone as the reader is made aware of the antagonistic and oppressive nature of the setting. Furthermore, the caesura between the two adjectives prolongs the description and breaks it up, enhancing the sense of the cliffs’ presence being jarring and excessively prominent. The extreme ugliness and austerity of the cliffs supports Cian Hogan’s idea that Plath’s poetry “can be likened to dreams and nightmares” - her description almost creates a caricature of the sinister landscape. Additionally, the following description, “and the sea exploding / With no bottom, or anything on the other side of it, / Whitened by the faces of the drowned,” adds to the sense of chaos and ferocity: “and” conveys the simultaneous truth of the two descriptions (that of the cliffs and then that of the sea), which suggests a sensory overloads as the violent force of the sea coincides with the cliffs’ passive yet highly disconcerting solemnity. The powerful action of the sea as portrayed by “exploding” is not only consolidated by the present participle of the verb, which illustrates the immediacy of the motion and therefore its frenzied nature, but also by the poet’s writing, “With no bottom, or anything on the other side of it” - here, the reader gets the sense that there is a total lack of restraints on the sea’s temperamental movements, and consequently its infinite power. Finally, “Whitened by the faces of the drowned” personifies the sea’s foam, indicating the brutality of the waters which have resulted in “the drowned” and also subverts the usual use of the colour “white” in order to convey purity - here, it is used as evidence for the evil and murderous nature of the sea. In a similar way, in Rain Hughes links nature - more specifically, water, like Plath - with death and destruction, writing, “The fox corpses lie beaten to their bare bones /Skin beaten off, brains and bowels beaten out”. The personification of the rain through the word “beaten”, which evokes the idea of human infliction of harm onto another human or being, suggests that perhaps the rain’s violence is not mindless, but both as deliberate as it is forceful. The repetition of the word indicates the incessant and merciless cruelty enacted upon the carcasses; its passive tense portrays the bodies’ helplessness: they are not safe from violence even in death. Moreover, the repetition of the ‘b’ sound creates auditory imagery: the reader can almost hear for themselves the noise of the rain attacking the “corpses”. This graphic imagery is striking to the reader; they feel as though they are witnessing the violence first-hand - similar to Plath’s way of using the present participle in Finisterre to present the vividness of the sea’s violence through its very current (to the reader) and chaotic actions. Simon Armitage demonstrates this idea when he wrote of Hughes’ poetry in general, stating that its “intensities are infinite and utterly absorbing”; the reader is consumed by the poet’s precise and striking imagery of the aftermath of the rain. Overall, both poets use personification in conjunction with other poetic techniques in order to convey the violence and brutality of the natural world, with both Plath’s sea and Hughes’ rain being portrayed as dominant and unstoppable forces, and with Plath’s cliffs robust and unfriendly. However, Plath’s narration appears disdainful, her fear of and incompatibly with the natural world conveyed through the idea of the sea having played an active part in the deaths of “the drowned”, as well as through the vivid verb “exploding”. This contrasts with the sense of Hughes’ awe as a result of the power of nature - more specifically the rain - in his poem Rain; his language suggests the strength of the rain with regards to its effects on the dead bodies of the foxes, but without the negative connotations which transpire in Plath’s poem Finisterre.