Circus in Three Rings

About this poem

Written near the end of her college years, the poem, Circus in Three Rings, diagrams Plath’s continual struggle to find solace in love even though a ‘mighty storm’ blows it away, and depression follows. The poem is replete with imagery, figurative uses, and attractive word choices and written in an allegory of three rings in a circus. The three stanzas of the poem are the three rings delineating three fragmentary and confusing thoughts regarding the poet’s affair with some treacherous person. The title is literally meant for three areas of a circus where performances occur at the same time, so, a busy place of confusing activities. She has successfully adopted the circus imagery of different rings and minutely relates them with the events of her affair. In the first stanza she displays a stormy show of celebration, (no doubt conparing her tumultuous emotional experiences to a hurricane) while the other two consist of the act of a ring-master with a lion (a lover), a magician’s trick in vanishing a demon, and a trapeze act by an acrobat – however, they are indicative symbols. more »