Metaphors
Metaphors Sylvia Plath uses many metaphors to describe her mysterious riddle. The first line suggests that she is a riddle in nine syllables. The poem written is nine lines long with nine syllables in each line, suggesting that she is being described in each of these lines. This gives importance to the number nine, which is one clue to the riddle. In the second line, she compares herself to “an elephant, a ponderous house.” These are physical properties characteristic of something very large. She continues in the next line to reference a “melon strolling on two tendrils.” A melon is a physical property to describe something round.