The Zoo-Keeper’s Wife by Sylvia Plath Summary

I can stay awake all night, if need be —
Cold as an eel, without eyelids.
Like a dead lake the dark envelops me,
Blueblack, a spectacular plum fruit.
No air bubbles start from my heart. I am lungless
And ugly, my belly a silk stocking
Where the heads and tails of my sisters decompose.
Look, they are melting like coins in the powerful juices —

The spidery jaws, the spine bones bared for a moment
Like the white lines on a blueprint.
Should I stir, I think this pink and purple plastic
Guts bag would clack like a child’s rattle,
Old grievances jostling each other, so many loose teeth.
But what so you know about that
My fat pork, my marrowy sweetheart, face-to-the-wall?
Some things of this world are indigestible.

You wooed me with the wolf-headed fruit bats
Hanging from their scorched hooks in the moist
Fug of teh Small Mammal House.
The armadillo dozed in his sandbin
Obscene and bald as a pig, the white mice
Multiplied to infinity like angels on a pinhead
Out of sheer boredom. Tangled in the sweat-wet sheets
I remember the bloodied chicks and the quartered rabbits.

You checked the diet charts and took me to play
With the boa constrictor in the Fellow’s Garden.
I pretended I was the Tree of Knowledge.
I entered your bible, I boarded your ark
With the sacred baboon in his wig and wax ears
And the bear-furred, bird-eating spider
Clambering round its glass box like an eight-fingered hand.
I can’t get it out of my mind

How our courtship lit the tindery cages —
Your two-horned rhinocerous opened a mouth
Dirty as a bootsole and big as a hospital sink
For my cube of sugar: its bog breath
Gloved my arm to the elbow.
The snails blew kisses like black apples.
Nightly now I flog apes owls bears sheep
Over their iron stile. And still don’t sleep.

“The Zoo-Keeper’s Wife” by Sylvia Plath is a deep and expressive poem that delves into the emotions of the speaker in a difficult marriage. The poem uses metaphors and imagery related to a zoo to portray a complex range of feelings.

The poem starts with the speaker expressing a readiness to stay awake all night, indicating restlessness and discomfort. The speaker compares themselves to a cold eel without eyelids, highlighting a lack of warmth and an inability to close their eyes to the surrounding darkness.

The darkness is described as “blueblack, a spectacular plum fruit,” creating a vivid visual image. The speaker further talks about being lungless and ugly, with their belly holding the decomposing remains of their sisters. Images like melting coins and spidery jaws add to the unsettling atmosphere.

The second part introduces the zookeeper, metaphorically referred to as “My fat pork, my marrowy sweetheart, face-to-the-wall.” The speaker addresses the zookeeper, expressing bitterness and resentment. The zookeeper seems oblivious to the speaker’s grievances and indifferent to their suffering.

The courtship between the speaker and the zookeeper is remembered with vivid and exotic imagery from the zoo. The wooing involved encounters with wolf-headed fruit bats, armadillos, white mice, and other creatures. However, as the poem progresses, the initial enchantment fades, and the speaker becomes disillusioned with the relationship.

The speaker reflects on the courtship as a time when “tindery cages” were lit, symbolizing the excitement and passion of the early stages of the relationship. Yet, the reality of the marriage is depicted as the rhinoceros, with a dirty mouth and a breath that gloved the speaker’s arm, suggesting suffocation and discomfort.

The concluding lines reveal the speaker’s ongoing struggle, flogging various zoo animals over their iron stile, symbolizing a restless and sleepless state of mind. The poem captures the complexities of a deteriorating marriage, using the zoo metaphor to convey themes of confinement, decay, and disillusionment.

Overall, “The Zoo-Keeper’s Wife” is a poignant exploration of the speaker’s emotions and the impact of a troubled marriage, using vivid and imaginative language to convey a sense of unease and despair.