The Hanging Man
Sylvia Plath * Track #32 On Ariel
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- #32The Hanging Man
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The Hanging Man by Sylvia Plath
Performed by
Sylvia PlathAbout
In the poem Plath or a persona she has invented — the “Hanging Man” of the title — is tortured by ‘some god’: hence she writes,‘By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me. I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet’. One interpretation is that this refers to the electro-convulsive thera...
The Hanging Man Annotated
By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.
I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.
The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard's eyelid :
A world of bald white days in a shadeless socket.
A vulturous boredom pinned me in this tree.
If he were I, he would do what I did.