Published on Modern American Poetry (https://modernamericanpoetry.org)


Margaret Dickie: On "The Arrival of the Bee Box"

"The Arrival of the Bee Box" is more positive about this "clean wood box" that would be a coffin except for the "din" within, "the swarmy feeling." The owner wonders what would happen if she freed the bees; "I am no source of honey/ So why should they turn on me?" She resolves to set them free tomorrow. In the box imagery, with its rampant life, Plath begins to develop a familiar situation in her poetry: inner turmoil and outer form. To open the box is to open the possibility of attack by its contents, a warning she seems anxious to ignore.

From Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Copyright © 1979 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

Publication Status: 
Excerpted Criticism [1]
Publication: 
- Private group -
Criticism Target: 
Sylvia Plath [2]
Author: 
Margaret Dickie [3]
Poem: 
The Arrival of the Bee Box [4]

Source URL: https://modernamericanpoetry.org/criticism/margaret-dickie-arrival-bee-box

Links
[1] https://modernamericanpoetry.org/category/publication-status/excerpted-criticism
[2] https://modernamericanpoetry.org/poet/sylvia-plath
[3] https://modernamericanpoetry.org/creator/margaret-dickie
[4] https://modernamericanpoetry.org/poem/arrival-bee-box