Tulips-+Assignment+questions


 * Note- The assignments below are not graded assignments but constitute part of your regular, out of class learning activity. You may send me your response in the e-mail itself ( not as a separate attachment) so that I can upload it on the wiki by copy and paste method. This is according to the agreement we reached in class about plagiarism issues. **

** //Tulips// - Give brief response to each of the 10 questions below:- Due on 25th November, 2011 **
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 * The woman speaking in the poem is recovering in hospital after an operation. As you read and think about the poem, ask yourself whether she is pulled towards life or death.
 * What idea and mood is evoked by the images of winter and white?
 * What might the explosions be?
 * What do the unusual images in stanza 2 suggest about the woman’s experience of hospital?
 * How does the speaker feel about her husband and child? How do you know?
 * Why is the woman attracted to the peacefulness?
 * The tulips are personified: they talk and breathe and ‘eat her oxygen’. What indications are there that they are attracting her attention?
 * Why are the tulips dangerous?
 * Explain the interesting image of the heart as a bowl of red blooms.
 * .Why do the woman’s tears come ‘from a country far away as health’?

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Themes : Though not an exhaustive list, the themes mentioned below are some of the most apparent in the poem, //Tulips.// Your task would be to pick up any theme from the list below which YOU find to be most important in the poem and analyze it. The task should be about 150-200 words though you could go over it. Be sure to use quotes and reference to the poem to validate your theme. Due date- 20th November, before midnight. I will not accept any assignment sent after 12 midnight, so please try posting it on time. On Monday, 21st November, we will be discussing your response, so be ready to justify your choice of theme in front of the class. Students will be picked up randomly. ====== Quest for inner peace Plath's poem, //Tulips//, emphasizes the quest for inner peace due to the events that had recently occurred in Plath's life when she wrote the poem. Throughout Plath's life, numerous traumatizing events had happened and the one that Tulips focuses on is her miscarriage of her child with her husband, Ted Hughes. The poet had suffered from depression and had tried to commit suicide numerous times in her life. This is relevant to the poem because //Tulips// concerns her feelings and emotions in the aftermath of the miscarriage when Plath was in hospital. The narrator wished to escape from feeling emotion, from living in real life. The quest for inner peace occurs when she is under anesthetic and thus cannot see the emotional trauma that the tulips bring. Plath's urge for inner peace becomes known when she states, “//To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.//
 * = Theme of purity =
 * = **The reluctance of maternal responsibilities and worldly obligations** =
 * = **The process losing personal identity** =
 * = **Quest for inner peace** =
 * || Zoe Meers || ||   ||   ||

 //How free it is, you have no idea how free -//

 //The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,”.// The theme “quest for an inner peace” is the most important theme of //Tulips// because the theme directly deals with Plath's surroundings and her mental state of being after the miscarriage. By wanting to have inner peace, Plath is saying that she wants anonymity or rather, she wants to be dead. Sylvia Brown November 20, 2011 __“Tulips” Assignment: The Process of Losing Identity __  In “Tulips” by Sylvia Plath, the speaker discusses a great deal the process of losing her identity and past. Near the beginning of the poem, she states that she is “nobody” who has “given [her] name and [her] day-clothes up to the nurses/And [her] history to the anaesthetist and [her] body to surgeons”. The image of her entire body being given up and split between different people shows that no part of her truly belongs to her anymore. To the nurses, her “body is a pebble”, an inanimate object of which there are many without distinct identities, which “they tend... as water”. In a river, there are thousands of pebbles that appear to be identical or very similar; by comparing herself to a pebble, the speaker suggests to the reader that she has become indistinguishable and one of many. She continues that she has “let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat/Stubbornly hanging onto [her] name and address”. This metaphorical “cargo boat” which she describes presumably holds her history, memories, and anything that happened in her life that weighed down on her conscious. By “let[ting it] slip”, she is releasing her past that had stayed “stubbornly” with her. She elaborates that “they [the nurses] have swabbed [her] clear of [her] loving associations”. Not only had they cleaned her of her past, but they have used a small swab to do it, creating the image of cleaning her of even the tiniest of associations. These associations, however, were “loving”, meaning that even those which were familiar and comfortable had been taken from her, which allowed her to reach the highest level of purity. Without these associations, she “see[s] [her]self, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow” that had no emotional depth or feeling. A paper cut-out has no identity and is the simplest representation of a figure; by describing herself as one, the speaker emphasizes her lack of personality. = //Brittany Storr // = = = = In the poem __Tulips__ by Sylvia Plath I believe the dominant theme is t **he reluctance of maternal responsibilities and worldly obligations. Confined to the sterile silence of a hospital bed Plath violently distorts the presence of tulips into something so much greater than mere 'get-well' gifts. The first line of the poem along with the title holds a wealth of knowledge. The expectation is to have a poem about the beauty and good nature of tulips but inside we are met with criticism of these vibrant flowers, ** **" **The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here." = = = = **<span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">To further support this theme Plath says, " **<span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly", this suggest that peacefulness is something she never had before but with this temporary lull the hospital has provided she can now explore what peace is. The line "their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks" suggest that yes the family picture is a happy one with grinning faces and healthy people but I feel Plath is not soothe or warmed by it, but rather it irritates her, bothers her, puts cracks in the shell she has built around herself. This is the first instance that suggest Plath is reluctant to return to the domicile liveof a mother. Stanza five in the poem talks about how Plath never wanted flowers, she wished to lie in bed empty handed and be free. In my opinion this was Plath's way of suggesting now that she have miscarried she has no baby toweigh down her peace, she can be free. Also Sylvia admonishes the flowers for what they have done to her white world. She tells us that they bring her no comfort but rather remind her of her pains, troubles...her reality, "And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow", she sees herself as she is, no longer pregnant and wasting away. = = = = <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">"Before they came the air was calm enough", the beauty of anesthetics is that it gives you an impenetrable peace, dreamless sleep and void of all worldly obligations. The nurses kept Sylvia well sedated but now that these tulips have come into the picture the 'nothingness' is no more. With their wound-like redness they bring her children, husband and other responsibility with them. They represent that someone out there is wishing her to get better so she can resume her life. I feel that Sylvia has strong feelings toward what these flowers symbolize and that is the reason they are criticized and attacked in the poem. Tulips aren't ugly but when you are at peace and someone sends you a reminder that it is fleeting and temporary you react in a way that makes it seem you are in no rush to get better or return tothe life you had before. = = = = = <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">The Reluctance of Maternal Obligations and Maternal Responsibilities <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">The poem “Tulips” is a parallel to the life and obligations of the author, Sylvia Plath. A theme that is central to the main message of the poem is the reluctance of maternal obligations and worldly responsibilities. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">In the poem, the women is recovering in the hospital after an operation. She is in dream-like state of consciousness and the numbness is dulling her senses and her grasp on reality. She states, “Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage... My husband and child smiling out of the family photo; Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks”. The weight of her obligations and responsibilities is unpleasant and the pull of her family, while tempting, is also unappealing. Similarly, the presence of the tulips allows painful feeling to surface. The pull at her like “ A dozen red lead sinkers...” and force her to confront a painful actuality. This corresponds to the feelings Plath might have had when she was hospitalized for a surgery after her miscarriage. She had failed her husband and his gift of a bouquet of tulips are a symbol of the harsh reality she must face. The tulips are described as suffocating the woman and overwhelming her with this message. If she wants to live, she must confront the obligations and responsibilities she has previously avoided. Live will be impossible if she does not realize this. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Adara <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;"> I believe that the theme of the process of losing one’s personal identity is the most important theme in Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Tulips.’ Plath’s seemingly melancholy mention of how she has ‘let things slip’ like a ‘thirty-year-old cargo boat’ is representative of the things she is losing in her life, not only literally, but also metaphorically. She seems to be letting go of several things in her life unintentionally, as though she cannot help but let it occur. Upon reading the poem for the first time, one could have the immediate thought of Plath “stubbornly hanging on to [her] name and address” purely for the reason that the anaesthesia that has entered her body is beginning to work and become effective. Her mind is gradually becoming blank and even though she knows that the anaesthesia is only temporary, she tries so hard to recover her thoughts and her identity. However, I would also think that in a way, Plath could be seen as intentionally trying to lose her personal identity, as it seems as though she is accepting the fact that the nurses have “swabbed [her] clear of [her] loving associations,” and the unconditional love and feelings that she once had for her family have now been removed from her. Therefore, the theme of losing one’s personal identity could be seen as the most important theme throughout the poem, as the feelings that Plath have of her losing everything that she has, including her personal identity and also her family, causes her to want to “lie with [her] hands turned up and be utterly empty.” = __<span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Keiya Shah __ <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">: <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">The process of losing personal identity is a very strong theme throughout the play. From the beginning the reader is made aware of the fact that she is in a very surreal, dreamlike state. She is very submissive, calm and has completely accepted her situation. ‘I have given my name’ is very important because a name is a very personal thing. It is a unique thing that differentiates one from others and is one of the main forms of identity. By saying that she has given it up, it shows how she no longer can identify with herself that losing her name, barely matters to her. Phrases like ‘My body is a….them’, ‘I have let….cargo boat’ all put emphasis on the slow process in which she willingly and in a very calm way lets herself be at the mercy of others. This process of losing her own identity is further emphasized with the line ‘To lie with my hands…utterly empty.’ This line is the ultimate in losing her identity. She is completely ready to not have anything personal or anything that matters for her. She is happy not having to deal with anything including herself inside. = = = = = = = = <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Luce Engrerant: = = = <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">The reluctance of maternal responsibilities and worldly obligations: a theme present in __Tulips__ by Sylvia Plath <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">The Poem //__Tulips__// by Sylvia Plath displays many themes but the major one seems to be the reluctance of maternal responsibilities and worldly obligations. Plath seems to display this theme in two parts; firstly describing the peacefulness she experiences being lazy or numb, secondly using the tulips as a symbol for her worldly obligations (maternal as well) Plath goes on to describe her dislike of responsibilities. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">To describe the inner peace she finds while cut off from all worldly obligations, Plath uses a synaesthesia of imagery evoking and praising laziness and numbness. Plath uses auditory imagery such as “quiet”, repeated at least twice, she also uses visual imagery such as “snowed in”, which transport the reader to a soft and padded world. Mostly however, Plath uses kinetic imagery “anaesthetist”, “They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff”, “numbness”. This imagery reinforces Plath´s content with being cut off from reality and enjoying this surreally protective and individualistic new environment. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">The contrast that occurs between the first two stanzas and the rest is foreshadowed in the first line and contrast of the poem: “Tulips are too excitable, it is winter here”. The hospital environment that Plath describes is very winter like, in contrast the tulips can be seen to symbolize her worldly responsibilities, be they maternal or otherwise. The paragraphs that follow explicitly state Plath´s annoyance with the tulips, thus her reluctance to fulfil her obligations. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Firstly Plath describes her reluctance to meet her maternal duties. She states “the tulips… like an awful baby… upsetting me”. In this particular case the tulips are identified to infants which Plath does not want to think about. This idea of rejection on motherly feeling is also expressed in another imagery “My husband and child smiling out of the family photo, // Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks”, where she associates the idea of a child to physical pain. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Secondly Plath further affirms a desire to be left carefree. She clearly states in a metaphor that she is “sick of baggage”. She continues to use the symbolism of tulips as worldly matters, saying that they are “A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck”. Plath especially despises the tulips, as she explains in a personification because “The tulips turn to me… now I am watched”- the flowers render her conscious and try and force her into remorse for being so disinclined to fulfil her duties. Finally Plath explains in a metaphor why worldly matters are so revolting to her, because “The air snags and eddies around them [tulips]”, in other words worldly obligations complicate her life and make it harder. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">To conclude, the poem __Tulips__ deals with the worldly obligations, including motherhood, which Sylvia Plath is reluctant to fulfil, symbolized in this work by the red flowers. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Stijn = = <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">The reluctance of maternal responsibilities and worldly obligations <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">In the poem “Tulips” by Sylvia Plath, the reluctance of maternal responsibilities and worldly obligations is the theme that most comes forward in my opinion, it is something that is referred to throughout the whole poem in various ways, in multiple layers. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">For example in the tenth line “stupid pupil it has to take everything in” for me not only signifies the pupil of the eye but also the meaning of pupil equivalent to student, this then refers to her miscarriage, because she has been a bad mother in the eyes of the world, she failed the exam of delivering a child, her obligation as a woman. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Then her clear reluctance of her maternal obligations is shown in the twentieth and twenty-first line where Sylvia Plath writes “My husband and child smiling out of the family foto; their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks”, this clearly shows that her husband and child, her family, are a negative thing for her, that they are trying to get her out of her peaceful state by catching onto her skin, attempting to drag her out of her peacefulness. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">And then the tulips, they are the manifestation of her worldly obligations, her obligations to her family she has, they are the only thing that is disturbing her happy peaceful and worry-free situation. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Lines 29-31 say “I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted to lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty. How free it is, you have no idea how free”. These flowers, the red tulips are probably given by her husband, her family, but she doesn’t want them, she does not want their love, because their love also signifies her obligations to them. They form a faraway memory of the misery her motherhood has formed for her, the pain and guilt it has given her because of the miscarriage and bad state of her marriage. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">The whole poem tells how she just does not want to get back to that miserable situation, but rather stay in her peaceful and free current situation in which she does not have to think of anything <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Erin Lavoie <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Themes in Plath’s //Tulips// <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Audaciously claiming Sylvia Plath’s //Tulips// main theme is “a reluctance to maternal and worldly responsibilities” can be tricky yet lucrative path to follow. Unfortunately, any theme involving responsibility and the avoidance thereof creates a minefield of clichés nearly impossible to avoid. Nonetheless, facts from her life showcase and accent the theme more prominently above others. Plath’s game of hide-and-go-seek with reality and responsibility in //Tulips// is a result of the presence of fear and the absence of security in her domestic life. She illustrates her theme beautifully through her diction in the poem, making it easy to draw parallels to reality. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Plath finds peace in the drug induced oblivion that follows anesthetic injections. She makes it clear in the first half of the poem. Words like peacefulness, quiet, pure, gently, and smoothing have a positive connotation with a tranquil and calm undertone. The first stanza makes it clear she’s embraces the feeling of nonentity and namelessness that has filled herself by explaining she is “learning peacefulness”. With such a chaotic life back home, peacefulness may very well be the thing she needs most in this world. However the reader would be in question of the source of her “baggage” were it not for the lines, “My husband and child smiling out of the family photo;/Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks” (Plath Lines 18, 20-21). Her peculiar family description implies dissatisfaction with their relationships and resentment of her obligations to them. Plath at the time was struggling through her failing and volatile marriage to Ted Hughes. Try as she might, success was not in the horizon for their relationship. She may have felt an obligation to try and heal their twisted relationship; something that only spurred resentment. Metaphorically comparing her family to hooks also suggests that they unwelcomingly cling to Plath, pulling her to their will. In line 28, she calls herself a nun, someone who neither marries nor bears children. This is followed with “I have never been so pure” (Plath Line 28). Purity is often a sought-after quality with a positive undertone. It is an absence of filth. Connecting the dots, it is clear she views her maternal and marital associations as a tarnish that has been “swabbed…clear” of her conscious reality (Plath Line 24). <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Keeping in mind Plath’s belief that the writings of a person should be personal and an insight into the authors life, one can assume the narrator is Plath herself, and therefore the majority of the parallels that can be drawn from her life to the poem hold some truth. Since the theme of worldly responsibilities appears and holds such a close connection to Plath’s life, one could conclude that //Tulips// was a piece of cathartic writing that helped her explore her emotions towards her familial obligations. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">The reluctance of maternal responsibilities and worldly obligations <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">By Nora Clarke <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">I believe that this theme is the most important and prevalent theme in the poem as I can see recurring mentioned in the poem. Sylvia Plath was a troubled woman who had to deal with many hardships in her short troubled life, one of the most tragic, a miscarriage. The poem “Tulips” describes the surgery she had to have shortly afterwards and her reluctance to come back to the real world and her responsibilities. In the poem she begins by lying in a hospital bed enjoying the silence, she says //“I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly”// here Plath is finding peace for the first time. The key phrase is “//by myself”// this indicates her qualms at returning to her life with others, saying that before she never knew peace and happiness, yet as she lies alone, without her family she finds it. This could however refer to more than merely an unwillingness to be around others, but to her miscarriage and how she is now indeed alone. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Furthermore we can see her aversion to returning to her old life and family in lines 18 through 21 “//Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage -- … their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.”// Plath is sick of ‘baggage’, referring to her old life and family as burdens, and continues, calling her husband and child’s smile’s as hooks that latch onto her. This instills the image of her responsibilities as a mother and wife dragging Plath away from the oblivion that comes with the nurses //“bright needles”//, negatives and factors of her life she wishes to escape//.// <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Moreover, before serenely pronouncing //“I am a nun now, I have never been so pure”// she says //“ they have swabbed me clear of my loving associations”// the implication being that she has not only accepted, but embraced the idea of letting go of her loved ones and therefore all the responsibilities that come with them, making her feel perfect and “//pure//”. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Plath’s resentment for the tulips at her bedside which, as spring flowers, represent moving on, and whose red colour, passion and emotions, can be seen in line 36 ; //“The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.”//. Therefore when she says: //<span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">“I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted // //<span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty. // //<span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;"> How free it is you have no idea how free – –” // <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">She implies that she does not wish any of the burdens that the flowers represents, wanting her hands to be empty, void of responsibility and obligation; she just wants to fly off and be free. This can further be seen as she says that before the tulips came //“the air was calm enough”// but now that they are there they fill it up “//like a loud noise.”// and now //“they are snags and eddies round them”// insinuating that once she could rest easy and was happy, however now that her husband and son have invaded her room in the form of a dozen tulips, she cannot rest easy nor forget herself, as they remind her of her commitments //“they concentrate my attention, that was happy Playing and resting without committing itself”// <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Through various powerful metaphors and excellently selected diction, Plath has managed to fill each line with her resentment and reluctance to once again rejoin the world, go back to her old life and deal with all her maternal and other worldly obligations, till each one is overflowing with her screams for freedom and the sound of her dragging feet as she makes her way out of her stupor. This is a prevalent theme in the poem and it is one that we can all in some way sympathize with, which one of us has never wished to escape the ties of life and be free, to drift off from our responsibilities and not be ourselves? I believe that this unquestionably one of the most prevalent ones present, discussing Plath’s unwillingness to return to her old life, as she is unable to face herself or her husband after her abortion and as she finds such tremendous freedom in letting go of them. I believe that this is the central theme as some of the only action in the poem is her trying to escape the restrictions and responsibilities of her life and then at the end her acceptance.
 * || <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Katherine Saviano || ||   ||   ||
 * <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Quest for inner peace **

<span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Throughout the poem //Tulips//, the author demonstrates her willingness to achieve inner peace. This poem is a reflection of the author's personal thoughts and experience, inside Sylvia Plath's conscience, there is a feeling of culpability because she realizes she has avoided her family responsibilities and has made several mistakes she can't forget. Therefore, Sylvia has enough time in the hospital to think about her situation where there is a moment when she feels connected to God; she reaches purity because all her mistakes have been wiped out as well as her physical properties, so she can only take care of her spiritual well-being in balance with the people she loves. She feels furious because she can only reach this state of freedom in her idealistic world of thoughts, alone, only when she stops her routine for a moment to criticize herself. There is a great frustration to achieve this inner peace because in real life the author knows it is impossible to escape from responsibilities, and she feels angry with herself for not being able to overcome this problem and show more compassion for the others. Sylvia is afraid of acknowledging the consequences of her acts, but she definitely knows that once she learns how to love herself, she will be able to love others.

<span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rebecca: <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Quest for inner peace

<span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;"> I find this to be the most important theme out of the four as the whole poem is about how the tulips are disrupting the persona’s peace. This is shown in the first line: ‘the tulips are too excitable’. This shows how the persona wants peace and does not like being disrupted. She is ‘learning peacefulness’, and the tulips are preventing her from achieving this. The 5th stanza shows this well – ‘I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted/To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.’ She is comfortable in ‘the peacefulness... so big it dazes you’ and likes it because it allows her to escape reality and the problems and hardships it brings. Her quest for inner peace, encouraged by the tranquillity of the white and the distant interactions of the nurses, is interrupted by the tulips which are ‘upsetting [her] with their sudden tongues and their colour’, when all she wanted to do is ‘efface herself’. The 8th stanza shows that the tulips ‘concentrate her attention, that was happy/Playing and resting without committing itself’. This inner peace the persona is searching for is admittedly not real inner peace, as it is more trying to escape from reality, but in a way the persona is still trying to achieve a sense of peacefulness. Since the whole poem focuses on the idea of how the tulips are bringing her back to reality from a peace she was creating for herself, I believe the theme of inner peace to be the most important of the four.

<span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">[| **ellagicacid**] Yesterday 8:01 pm <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Quest for inner peace:

<span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 14pt;"> I think the main theme in the poem “Tulips” by Sylvia Plath is quest for inner peace. I think Sylvia Plath is definitely on a personal quest for peace. As we know, she has had a very troubled life; losing her father at such a young age, having been verbally abused (and possibly physically abused) by her husband Ted Hughes, and having tried to commit suicide a number of times. I think Sylvia associates and confuses peace with numbness. The anesthesia makes her feel numb (“They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep”) and this allows her to escape from reality, and to be free from her maternal/family obligations. We can see in the 5th stanza: “I didn't want any flowers, I only wanted/To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty./How free it is, you have no idea how free -/The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,” she feels at peace without her life obligations worrying her. We can also see how she is on a quest for inner peace by the way she reacts to the tulips. She feels angry because they interrupt her peacefulness and drag her back to reality like “A dozen red lead sinkers around my neck”. They remind her that she has a life, children and a husband to return to and they remind her that she cannot stay forever in the peaceful white hospital. = =