Religion

Sylvia Plath makes many different allusions to organized religion in the poem. Specifically, her references seem to invoke the European Christian tradition. The first overt reference to Christianity occurs in the second stanza of the poem. The speaker says, “Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky —- ” (12). This evokes the image of church bells tolling for a mass or a worship ceremony traditionally held on Sundays. The author goes on to invoke other elements of Christian scripture in alluding to “Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection” (13). This plausibly refers to the resurrection of Christ in the Christian tradition. The “tongues affirming” (13) this resurrection may stand in for patriarchs of the church, or for the branches and sects of Christianity more broadly. The number eight is associated symbolically with the infinite, hinting at a mixing of pre-Christian iconography with staid Christian themes. The figures referred to...