Sylvia Plath’s ‘Cut’
On 24 October 1962, at the same time as she was in the process of composing the more substantial and better
known 'Lady Lazarus', Sylvia Plath wrote 'Cut'. Although it has been occasionally admired, 'Cut' is not often
afforded the kind of critical energy expended on many of the other pieces which were eventually collected in Ariel,
Plath's final volume. Anne Stevenson, for instance, in Bitter Fame, her biography of the poet, offers only the
comment that it is a 'playful poem'.
Yet 'Cut' rewards a more detailed look, for it is multifaceted. Capable of diverse interpretations and embodying
Plath's gift for the vivid and striking, it ranges over a spectrum of references confirming not only her marked talent
for figurative invention, but the dark humour that is not always credited in her writing.
The incident that sparked Plath's creative process was a minor kitchen calamity--according to Stevenson, she 'all
but cut off the fleshy tip of her thumb with a kitchen knife'. Debate about whether the 'slip' which caused the injury
owed more to intent than accident is inevitable, given Plath's history of self-harm. It is fuelled by the breathless
opening:
What a thrill-My thumb instead of an onion.
The top quite gone
Except for a hinge
Of skin,
A flap like a hat ...
The noun 'thrill' is a source of contention. Although it can lead to the plausible inference that the narrator enjoys the
pain, it is also entirely possible that Plath uses the word in roughly the same sense in which Shakespeare employs
the verb form--'I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins'--at the moment of Juliet's 'dismal scene'. Anyone
who has experienced a similar accident will probably be able to identify with the adrenalised 'shock' which Plath's
wound seems to have triggered.
Detachment
After the suddenness of the first line, the almost objective, distanced description which follows it seems to recreate
the sense of detachment which can also accompany injury--the 'it's not really happening to me' sensation. The
graphic 'hinge' is neatly and appropriately separated from the prepositional phrase which commences the second
verse, but the connection between the two elements, and indeed the 'flap' and the rest of the thumb, is sustained
through enjambement. The subsequent simile establishes both a further linkage and the possibility that complete
dismemberment could occur as easily as the taking off of a piece of headwear. A jumpy rhythm is already apparent
which might reflect sudden changes in the narrator's pulse. The stark colour contrast of the 'Dead white' of the
wound site and the 'red plush' of the blood pumping from it adds to the effect of surprise and excitement.
An onion was the original object of the misplaced slicing and Plath is able to use the associative aspects of layering
to fine advantage in what follows. Besides encompassing some more personal responses, in at least five of the
next eight stanzas, the allusions to conflict or unrest of various kinds create a sequence of snapshots of events in
American history. The personified thumb is initially characterised as a 'Little pilgrim', who has been the victim of
scalping, continuing the motif of head injury. The connection to the events of 1620, when the Mayflower landed
(according to legend) at Plymouth Rock, and their aftermath is sustained in the mention of 'turkey'--America's
traditional Thanksgiving Day food. The red, fleshy 'wattle' extends through tint and texture our sense of the look and
feel of the thumb.
Confusion and ambiguity
As the blood pumps, engagement follows, for both narrator and reader. We are told that a suitably scarlet carpet
'rolls/Straight from the heart'. The pace increases with 'I step on it'--not only the literal act of treading in the fluid
which has dripped onto the floor, but suggesting a dash to the medicine cabinet. To staunch the flow, the narrator
'Clutch[es]' the injured digit, but cannot stop the bleeding--the thumb has become a bottle 'Of pink fizz' which
heightens the confusion of feeling (as does the mention of 'celebration') and may also refer to the effect of an
effervescing palliative or antiseptic used as first aid.
The return to the imagery of fighting is chronological--'Redcoats' were the British soldiers who contested the
American War of Independence (1775-83). For Plath, a citizen of the USA, living in England and recently sexually
betrayed by her husband Ted Hughes, the question of loyalty now addressed to the 'million' red cells gushing 'Out
of a gap'--'Whose side are they on?'--is both poignant and potent. The oddly ambiguous mood of the previous
moments gives way to anxiety and doubt. Even here, however, the fact that the corpuscles are 'Redcoats, every
one' and therefore of the same nationality as the 'traitor' Hughes, seems to hint at a knowing grimace.
The vocative address of the thumb--'O my/ Homunculus' raises more than one potential response. The
connotations of a dwarf man are various--the thumb itself, already personified as a pilgrim, continues to be similarly
handled and an idea of male inadequacy, possibly in relation to Hughes's emotional treatment of Plath, is
transmitted. Even, perhaps, by curious cross-reference to the theories of the eighteenth-century Preformationists
(who asserted that the head of each sperm contained a micro-human) a sexual subtext is established. The thumb
becomes, at least momentarily, phallic.
The rhyme of 'ill ... pill ... kill', which has been termed 'childish', echoes a feature of Plath's other work--it is an
obvious element in 'Daddy'. In 'Cut', it helps provide not only further rhythm, but reminds us of the poet's selfdestructive impulse. Here too, readers wishing to suggest that the knife was deliberately misaimed may choose to
find evidence to support their claims.
The metaphor of 'The thin/Papery feeling' is evocative. After the initial trauma of the accident comes a faintness and
fragility. The critic Pamela J. Annas states that 'Paper often stands for the self-image of the poet' in Plath's later
poems, adding that it conjures 'her sense of depersonalisation ... the separation of self from self'. The immediacy of
the accident is, once again, neutralised by a distancing effect--the sense of being an observer of someone else's
small tragedy. More importantly, the swooning sensation of trembling shock is neatly conveyed.
Political and personal
The mood of anxiety now gives way to impatience and anger--the thumb is a 'Saboteur', a 'Kamikaze man'. The roll
of American involvement in warfare continues--this time the reference is plainly to the bitter struggle with the
Japanese, commencing in 1941 with their attack on Pearl Harbor. Kamikaze pilots, with their suicidal devotion, are
a typically Plathian reference.
The whiteness of the bandage placed over the thumb and its triangular shape suggest the notorious (and criminally
blood-tarnished) uniform of the 'Ku Klux Klan'--an allusion to the violent internal strife which continued a vicious
'stain' on the American political landscape of the 1950s and beyond. The thumb's new 'headscarf' is like that of a
Russian grandmother and the historical recount is sustained in the link to America's Cold War conflict with
communism. The Cuban Missile Crisis, a particularly nervous moment in the relations of the global superpowers,
had commenced only 10 days prior to Plath's composition of 'Cut'.
The last of the images of fighting is that of the 'Trepanned veteran'. This could be seen as a backwards step in the
timeline referring to the casualties of the Second World War. However, even as early as June 1951, Plath had
voiced a concern with 'the blood ... now spurting in Korea'. It is entirely likely that the world-weariness of the poem's
end is at least in part connected to a frustration with the USA's involvement in Southeast Asia. In September 1962,
the New York Times ran headlines such as 'South Vietnamese inflict a major defeat on Reds' and 'Vietnam strikes
at Reds' bastions'.
Despite these contextual complexities, 'Cut' closes in a more personal vein. The heart continues to function, but it is
a 'balled Pulp'. An uncomfortable throbbing of severed skin can be felt in the 'small/Mill of silence' and the 'jump' of
the final verse. The last beat of 'Thumb stump' creates an appropriate finality. It is, however, the troubling 'Dirty girl,'
extending backwards into the imagery of spilt blood on white cotton and connecting with the images of sexual
infidelity, that lingers beyond the end of the piece.
'Cut' is just over 130 words in length. Love it or hate it, it is unusual to have no reaction at all to the poem and
perhaps this is one of the things that Plath aimed for in many of her pieces. It moves from simple misfortune into an
unsettlingly ambiguous meditation on the nature of pain, via a typically sharp (if superficial) survey of American
military and civil strife. The personal and political are astutely combined in a manner which clearly reveals the
quality of Plath's imagination. Whether or not one also chooses to see in it a 'castration fantasy' borne out of a
desire for revenge, is another matter altogether.
References
Annas, P. (1980) Women's Studies, Vol. 7, Nos 1-2, pp. 171-83.
Stevenson, A. (1989) Bitter Fame, Viking Press.
Ian McMechan is Head of English at Ermysted's Grammar School, Skipton, and a Principal Examiner for English at A2.
Named Works: Cut (Poem) Criticism and interpretation
Source Citation
McMechan, Ian. "'Cut' by Sylvia Plath: Ian McMechan discovers not just an ironic personal summary but a concise history of
America in this short, neglected poem." The English Review Sept. 2005: 21+. Student Resource Center - Gold. Web. 12 Apr.
2010.
Document URL
http://find.galegroup.com/gps/infomark.do?&contentSet=IACDocuments&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=IPS&docId=A136339231&source=gale&srcprod=SRCG&userGroupName=d
ulwichc&version=1.0
http://find.galegroup.com/gps/printdoc.do?contentSet=IACDocuments&docType=IAC&isIllustration=false&sort=DateDescend&tabID=T003&prodId=IPS&retrieveFormat=&docId=A136339231&searchId=R1&orientation=
&currentPosition=1&userGroupName=dulwichc&docLevel=&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&noOfPages=1&inPS=true&pageIndex=0&relatedDocId=&scale=&quer
yId=R1