“Spinster” by Sylvia Plath is a poem composed of a character, who in other words acts as a “second self” for the author and conveys her most intimate feelings. The poem was written in 1956, the same year as Plath's marriage to Ted Hughes, also a poet. The title suggests that the person is someone who dislikes marriage and normal courtship rituals as a spinster is an unmarried woman, typically an older woman who is past the normal age of marriage and may never marry. The character of the poem is a woman who dislikes disorder and chaos and finds relationships as unpredictable as the spring season, in which there is no sense of uniformity. In this poem, Plath not only uses a person to reveal her feelings, but also juxtaposes the seasons and their order (or lack thereof) and connects them to the order that comes from loneliness and the disorder that is attributed to relationships. He achieves this through the use of formal diction, which ties into meticulous structure and develops visual imagery. First, in the first stanza, Plath provides the visual imagery of a woman taking a walk in the middle of spring with her lover. What would normally be a pleasant image is depicted in a very formal and boring way as the walk is “ceremonial” and the male companion is not a romantic lover, but rather just one of the woman's suitors (line 2). By using words like “ceremonious” and “suitor” to explain what may appear on the surface to be a pleasant experience, the woman implies that she is indifferent towards the man and walks with him simply to keep up appearances or in other words to what is usual with the norms of courtship. The woman also reveals a considerable amount of sorrow "... middle of paper ...... t, threat, or love, or" (29-30). Overall, the imagery that Plath creates is framed by her diction and is used to convey her emotions towards all relationships and probably even towards her marriage to Ted Hughes, who had rude and messy habits. The structure of the poem also seems rigorous as each stanza ends with a period and is made up of exactly six lines. Furthermore, the character in the poem is very detached and realistic, so much so that it is difficult to distinguish between her and Plath herself. However, Plath insinuates that the woman actually desires love deep down, but finds the complexity and unpredictability of love frightening. As a result, he settles for solitude as a defense against his underlying fear. Works Cited Plath, Sylvia. "Spinster." Sound and sense by Perrine. Ed. Helen Triller. 12th edition Boston: Lyn Uhl, 2008. 393-394.