Ariel

The sun typically symbolizes divine beings, life, and knowledge. Plath’s “Ariel” builds all of these connotations into her image of the sun as “the cauldron of morning” (Line 31). The speaker’s movement from “darkness” (Line 1) to “the red / [e]ye” (Lines 30-31) of the sun represents a larger movement from ignorance to knowledge that goes back to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (where the sun represents truth and knowledge versus the shadows inside the cave that represent ignorance). Though the speaker’s journey from birth to rebirth might seem cyclical, the speaker gains knowledge and potentially moves to a higher, divine realm.

More than these traditional associations, Plath presents the generative possibilities of the life- and knowledge-giving sun as a maternal sphere of infinite potential. Plath often associates the color red with motherhood (See: Analysis). The “red / [e]ye” the speaker rides toward is a “cauldron” (Line 31), or womb of a larger maternal spirit. This spirit not only illuminates the speaker’s world, diffusing the “darkness” (Line 1), it provides the necessary possibilities that allow the poem’s speaker to transform and grapple with their identity. These possibilities are inherent in the “morning” (Line 31) sun, which represents renewal and coming into being.