The Speaker (Plath)

In “Full Fathom Five” Plath invokes her own presence through the use of singular first-person pronouns, such as “me” and “I.” At the same time, however, there is evidence to suggest that Plath, despite being the speaker of her own poem, feels a strong sense of self confinement and limitation. While her use of first-person, the direct markers of lyricism, occur throughout the body of “Full Fathom Five,” their occurrence is rather sparse, only becoming concentrated and prominent within the final five lines of the entire poem. Plath’s personal sense of marginalization and banishment in relation to her old man and father, the subject and other primary character of her poem, is additionally evident in the descriptions she uses throughout. For example, she directly writes to him, “I walk dry on your kingdom’s border / Exiled to no good” (41-42). As such, Plath’s selfhood...