1. What hopes and dreams do you think parents tend to have for their children? Do all parents have the same hopes and dreams?
2. poems. In this poem she compares her child to a snowdrop. Is a snowdrop a good
3. What emotion can stars be symbols of?
COMPREHENDING AND RESPONDING
1. 2. What hopes and dreams does Plath have for her child? 3. How does a small child learning to speak ‘meditate’ upon words? 4.
6. What is it the poet does not want for her child? 7. Why, in your view, did Plath substitute the world ‘ceiling’ for ‘sky’ in the last line?
8. Have you encountered any more references to hands in the other Plath poems you have studied? If so, what do these references reveal about Plath’s character, in your opinion? Support your answer with reference to Plath’s poetry.
10. Compare this poem to another one of Plath’s poems that deals with the same theme.
CREATING
1. Imagine you are the child whom this poem was written about. Write a diary entry in which you explain your feelings after having read this poem.
2. Write a letter or an email from a mother or father to their new baby, in which they express their hopes and dreams for the baby’s future. You can base it on people
3. Write the script of a short conversation between a parent and a child in which the parent tells the child their hopes for them, and the child responds to these hopes.