Organizing an IOC for a poem

1. Determine author’s purpose and then use it in your guiding purpose In the poem “Mad Girl’s Love Song” Plath expresses a delusional discontentment with a lover she once idolized. She is so angry she becomes crazy. This may (and should) change as you use the 20 minutes to brainstorm!!! Get the tone in there!

Remember the descriptors on the rubric! In the poem “Mad Girl’s Love Song” Plath expresses a delusional anger with a lover she once idolized. Remember the descriptors on the rubric! 1. Knowledge and understanding of the poem (this gets to your KNOWLEDGE of the poem and your interpretation as well as how well you can pull evidence from the poem to back your smack)

Meaning of the poem (author’s purpose) 2. Appreciation of writer’s choice Language Structure Technique Style How they shape Meaning of the poem (author’s purpose)

Delusional discontentment Organization In the poem “Mad Girl’s Love Song” Plath expresses a delusional discontentment with a lover she once idolized. Delusional discontentment

Your language Your vocab, your style, your terminology appropriate to commentary

Echo words Delusional: crazy, made up, figment of her imitation Discontent: unhappy, stern, scornful, upset, Idolized: cared about excessively These become my divisions!

Intro: purpose, introduce, title relate In the poem, “Mad Girl’s Love Song”, Plath expresses her delusional discontent with a lover whom she once idolized. The title refers to a girl who could be both upset and crazy mourning the loss of her lover. This dual meaning– insanity or jilted lover is found throughout this poem.

Notice how everything overlaps in meaning, too! Form (delusional) The tight structure of the poem juxtaposes the serious and delusional thought pattern of a jilted lover with the very rigid villanelle. The repetition and structure do also contribute to the “song like” quality referred to in the title itself Notice how everything overlaps in meaning, too!

Delusional 1st line – sleeping/fainting/death– everything is gone– contributing to the unsure nature of her song “All” reinforces this idea– her lover/troubles gone Repeated parenthetical: The stylistic choice to enclose the line with parenthesis reinforces the fact that whatever has happened, she cannot be sure if her lover is real Imagery of “blue and red”- visual image of sleeping pills– further contributed by the verb “waltzing”– we don’t know her mental state due to this

delusional Kissed me quite insane” again– so in love or crazy– dual meaning of word insane--

Loved this guy “I fancied you’d return”- the word fancied implies a girlish crush / perhaps naiveté The “you” is her lover, the fact that she had written this song about him reinforces this idea

She’s unhappy (quite actually) “I dreamed you bewitched”– again, this brings in the question of her mental state (mad/mad) but Bewitched implies a certain lack of responsibility on her part– thus alleviating her of any responsibility– and putting the blame on him; - “God topples”– also gets to her tone, but also could be her scorching unhappiness: nothing matters– not God, and not “Satan”– the allusion Allusion: Thunderbird– shift to a sarcastic tone- imagery--- rising from nothing– she should have something that dies/disappears and then “roars” back Verb “roar” onomatopoeia implies this creature would come back with a fanfare as opposed to the guy who jilted her.

After brainstorming for a bit I notice that my purpose could be tweaked to include a bit about this dual meaning– so guess what? I can change it before I speak. I shall now attempt to model an IOC for you.