The Munich Mannequins

This poem is written in free verse, with no consistent meter or rhyme. The poem has 13 couplets, or two-line stanzas, and one one-line stanza. This steady structure mimics the speaker’s footsteps as she walks through Munich. The last three stanzas have some of the shortest lines, suggesting a slowing of her pace. The shortened last stanza with only one line suggests that the speaker has stopped, caught up in thought in her meditations on snow while also appearing a mannequin herself on the street.

The poem’s form also works to reflect the speaker’s state of mind, as thoughts flow unevenly across stanzas, with only the first stanza containing a complete sentence. This fractured presentation of ideas in the poem illuminates her questioning and despairing mindset, especially in regards to the expectations placed upon women.

Plath begins her poem with an example of personification, or the giving of human characteristics to nonhuman objects. The speaker states that perfection “cannot have children” (Line 1) because the coldness “tamps the womb” (Line 2). This personification also feminizes perfection by equating it with a woman.