19 pages • 38-minute read
The Munich Mannequins
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Symbols & Motifs
The yew tree
Plath’s specific selection of the yew tree carries many meanings. For Christianity, among many other religious and cultural traditions, a yew tree symbolizes life and rebirth after death. As the poem takes place during the winter, its needles would be a visual reminder of the coming reawakening of nature in springtime. Plath reinforces this connection to rebirth by comparing the yew tree to the hydra, itself a many-headed mythological creature who could regenerate any lost heads. Yet the yew tree is poisonous, and its branches and trunk are twisted and gnarled. The speaker uses these dueling connotations to reflect her complex relationship with femininity and motherhood. The yew tree mirrors the structure of the uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries. These organs are critical for reproduction and the ‘rebirth’ of humanity in the next generation. By connecting nature to women’s fertility, she suggests that motherhood is natural. The speaker criticizes models for pursuing a career that “tamps the womb” (Line 2) and prevents this regeneration. While the speaker is critical of women who do not have children, she seems more to unquestioningly accept motherhood as an expected role for women rather than endorse it fully.
Snow
Plath uses snow to represent sterility and perfectionism. The speaker associates the coldness of snow and winter with the frigidity of childless women and sterility of perfection in the first line. She describes perfection as “[c]old as snow breath” (Line 2). This description portrays women seeking this standard of beauty as unemotional and frigid. Their pursuit of perfection “tamps the womb” (Line 2). The word “tamp” (Line 2) suggests an unnatural suppression of the warmth of fertility and motherhood.
Plath connects coldness to death in her description of Munich as a “morgue between Paris and Rome” (Line 12). In contrast to the pregnant female body bearing life, the bodies in the morgue are cold and dead. The models favored by the culture of this city are, in the speaker’s opinion, the equivalent to these bodies in the morgue.
Plath connects snow to darkness and isolation when the speaker says that the “snow drops its pieces of darkness” (Line 16). The darkness and the snow cause the Munich streets to be deserted, and the speaker is physically alone on the street, which reflects her mental and emotional isolation.
The speaker returns to the image of snow at the end of the poem. She states flatly that the “snow has no voice” (Line 27). After associating snow with women throughout the poem, this final statement reflects how the speaker views women as voiceless in the patriarchal society.
Telephone
The speaker describes payphones she sees out on the streets of Munich. She describes these “black phones on hooks” (Line 24) as beautiful but isolated, recalling her description of mannequins throughout the poem. While these phones are “[g]littering” (Line 25) like an invitation to the speaker, they are also isolated and “digesting / Voicelessness” (Lines 26-27). The speaker admires their appearance in the snow, the phone serves no purpose, as no one, including the speaker, is using them during the snowy night. Similarly, mannequins, while beautiful, cannot speak. The speaker has been critical of these standards for women throughout the poem, but this final image suggests that the speaker understands the role that the patriarchy plays in women’s decisions, and that women are connected by these societal limitations.
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