The Full Text of “Fever 103°”
The Full Text of “Fever 103°”
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“Fever 103°” Introduction
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"Fever 103°" was first published in Sylvia Plath's posthumous collection Ariel (1965), although she wrote the poem in 1962. The combination of hellish and heavenly imagery reflects her state of mental anguish (she suffered all her life from clinical depression) and in a broadcast on the BBC she stated: "This poem is about two kinds of fire—the fires of hell, which merely agonize, and the fires of heaven, which purify. During the poem, the first sort of fire suffers itself into the second." It is a highly dynamic work, dramatizing a journey from suffering to paradise.
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“Fever 103°” Summary
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Am I pure? I'm not sure what purity even is. The flames of hell, which are like tongues, are as dull as the three tongues of the triple-headed dog Cerberus,
who is fat and stupid, wheezing as he stands guard at the gates of hell. These flames are unable to lick clean
my feverish muscles, unable to purify me of my sins. The wood cries out as it catches on fire. There is the unforgettable smell
of a blown-out candle. Oh my love, the thick smoke coming from me is like Isadora Duncan's scarves; I'm scared that like her,
one of my scarves will get caught in a wheel and break my neck. Such sad, yellow smokes create their own environment. Unlike normal smoke, they don't rise
but instead go around the world choking those who are old or weak, choking a frail
baby as if its crib were in a sweltering greenhouse, choking also the dreadful orchid flower, as if it were being hanged like a criminal in its hanging garden.
These smokes are like an evil leopard! Radiation turned the leopard white, killing it in just one hour.
Sin is visible in the sweat of adulterers, eating into them like radioactive ash from the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The sin, the sin.
My darling, all night I'm switching from hot to cold, like I'm a lightbulb flickering on and off, my bed sheets growing heavy with sweat, like a pervert's kiss.
My fever has been going on for three days and three nights. I've drunk lemon water and chicken broth, but they just made me gag.
I'm simply too pure for you, my lover, or indeed for anyone else. Your body hurts me like the state of the world hurts God. I am like a lantern,
my head like a moon made out of Japanese paper, my skin covered in gold leaf, which is incredibly expensive and incredibly fragile.
Feel how hot I am—isn't it astonishing? I'm blazing as brightly as a light—isn't that also amazing? All on my own I'm like an enormous camellia flower, my skin flushing red, then returning to normal, again and again.
I feel like I'm going up and up, I think I'm going to ascend out of this state. Flecks of molten metal spit, and I feel pure love. I
am pure like an inflammable Virgin Mary, surrounded by roses,
by kisses, by angels, and whatever else these pink things mean. Neither you, my love, nor this other man,
nor this one, nor this, can hold me down or come with me. I feel my different selves disappearing, like a prostitute's clothing, as I ascend to Paradise.
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“Fever 103°” Themes
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Purity and Sin
“Fever 103°” describes a speaker caught in the hallucinogenic state of a high fever. She lies in bed, the heat coming in waves. These physical feelings are described using a series of metaphors that compare the speaker’s state to that of someone condemned to hell because of their “sin”—in other words, because of their impure behavior. The poem traces the speaker’s battle with her feelings of sinful impurity, which she eventually wins by achieving a form of transcendence, which she compares to ascension to “Paradise.” The poem suggests that to reach this heavenly goal, it is necessary for the speaker to destroy her old self through a process of suffering.
The poem begins with a question: “Pure? What does it mean?” This shows the speaker’s confusion at the precise nature of moral correctness. Rather than feeling pure, she feels infected by the opposite of purity: a vague but intense “sin,” which condemns her to the hellish trials of fever. These trials, both physical and mental, are described by a series of images that evoke traditional depictions of hell, including the “tongues of […] Cerberus,” a monster who guards the Greek underworld, and “sullen smokes” that choke “the aged and the meek,” which recall hellfire.
The poem compares this torment to modern as well as mythological suffering, in the allusion to “Hiroshima ash.” It seems, then, that the speaker’s undefined guilt may be historical, the guilt of an American for the suffering caused by the atomic bombs. Another source of her guilt might be sexual promiscuity, since when she is purified by the poem’s end, she sheds “old whore petticoats.”
The range of these infernal metaphors and their quick pace, coming one after the other, mimic the heatwaves of fever and the rapid workings of an obsessive mind. By the end of line 30 ("The sheets grow heavy as a lecher's kiss"), there seems to be no way to escape the cycle. However, a process of purification begins at line 31 ("Three days. Three nights."), as the speaker ascends from the depths of suffering to a sense of moral and religious purity. In part this process occurs because she comes to understand that suffering is necessary to atone for her guilt, and to be rid of her old self.
Just as her suffering was described in hellish imagery, her purification is described using heavenly metaphors. She says “I think I am going up” and that she is "a pure [… ] Virgin” accompanied “by cherubim” (angels). She even compares herself to God, saying her lover’s body “hurts” her “as the world hurts God.” This emphasizes how exceptional she has become, positioning her above the rest of sinful mankind. All these images are profoundly individualistic, even egotistical. The speaker’s purification does not resemble typical religious rituals, which take place as part of a community, but is instead an individual struggle, out of which she emerges as exceptional. She distinguishes herself from her lovers, rejecting both “you” and “him” in her ascension to “Paradise.”
Precisely what this purifying process represents in literal terms is ambiguous. It is unlikely to be a return to health from sickness, since that would also require a return to society, from which the speaker separates herself. Perhaps it is the opposite: an acceptance of the fantastical, hallucinogenic effects of fever as a source of creative inspiration, which is traditionally considered a highly individualized process. The speaker may be indicating that having suffered and shed her old self, she's now free to be an independent artist, set apart from the rest of the world.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-7
- Lines 14-15
- Lines 15-22
- Lines 25-27
- Line 30
- Lines 31-54
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Lust and Desire
The language and imagery of "Fever 103°" are highly sexualized. It often seems as if the speaker’s guilt is caused by her “sin” of promiscuity—she mentions another "him" in addition to her “love,” for instance. However, over the course of the poem, its ideas about lust change from condemnation to an acceptance—or even celebration—of female sexuality. The poem seeks to reverse shaming and sexist attitudes toward women's sexuality, to the extent that by its end, lust (one of the mortal sins) is raised to “Paradise.”
At first, the poem connects shame and female desire. The speaker begins by asking “Pure? What does it mean?” as if her feelings of lust make her so impure as to disqualify her from even knowing the definition of purity. The first explicit reference to love/lust is in the fourth stanza, where she cries out “Love, love” as if in desperation, seeming to seek a male lover to rescue her from her “fright.” This fear is explained by her comparison of herself to Isadora Duncan, a dancer who died when her scarf became entangled in the wheels of a car, breaking her neck. Duncan’s last words were reputedly “Je vais à l’amour,” ("I am going to love"), implying she was off to have an affair. These violent images of shame in response to the speaker's own sexuality culminate in the horrific description of “Radiation” which “[greases] the bodies of adulterers” like the burnt victims of Hiroshima. It is as if the speaker feels that shame is literally dissolving her body.
After line 31 ("Three days. Three nights."), the turning point in the speaker’s move from impurity to purity, it initially seems as if her new purity is of the traditional, virginal type. Accordingly, it's described through conventionally religious imagery. For instance, the speaker says her body is “too pure for you or anyone,” adding: “Your body / Hurts me as the world hurts God.” Avoiding male penetration is what Christianity demands of “pure” women, and the reference to pain recalls the traditional idea that losing her virginity “hurts” a woman. Continuing this thread of purity, the speaker describes herself as separating from the world (including its earthly lusts) when she describes herself as a “Japanese paper” lantern floating away. The metaphor of the speaker’s skin as “gold beaten” also alludes to Byzantine mosaics (a style of art born in the Eastern Roman Empire during the Middle Ages), which are almost always religious in nature.
However, these conservative descriptions are soon turned on their heads as the speaker assumes an increasingly self-confident sexuality. In line 40, she proclaims her "astound[ing]" “heat” to impress her lover and describes herself “Glowing and coming […] flush on flush.” "Coming" is slang for reaching orgasm and flushing is an automatic response to sexual arousal, so it's clear by this point that the speaker's new sense of purity is starting to combine with her sexuality rather than fighting against it. Heat is also associated with sexual desire, and it recurs throughout the last stanzas in regard to the speaker’s lust. Her description of herself as an “acetylene / Virgin” is almost an oxymoron: acetylene is an inflammable gas, which is explosive when it comes into contact with fire.
Since heat represents lust, pairing acetylene with an emblem of chastity (the Virgin Mary) means radically redefining purity. The poem explodes the Virgin’s chastity from her purity; the image suggests that a “pure” woman no longer depends on men ("Not you, nor him"), but is instead in charge of her own sexual appetites. By embracing her lust, the speaker is able to escape shame and ascend to her self-created “Paradise"—instead of being barred from the regressive Christian Paradise, which values only heterosexual marital relationships.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Line 1
- Line 7
- Lines 11-13
- Lines 23-27
- Lines 28-30
- Lines 34-54
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Fever 103°”
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Lines 1-7
Pure? What does ...
... sin, the sin."Fever 103°" begins with two linked rhetorical questions, in which the speaker questions the nature of purity. She suffers from a high fever throughout the poem, so one sense of the word "pure" here is "free of any contamination"—in other words, free of sickness. Taking "pure" in this sense, it is as if the speaker is asking whether or not she will ever be cured. However, the reference to "tongues of hell" in line 2 brings up a second meaning of "pure": "wholesome and untainted by immorality, especially of a sexual nature." The speaker, it seems, is overwhelmed with guilt at her own sins, fearing the punishment of hell, to the extent that she questions whether she even understands the word "pure" anymore.
Lines 2-5 contain an extended metaphor comparing fever's waves of heat with the "tongues of hell." "Tongues," in this sense, means flames. But as with line 1, there is a moral meaning to these words in addition to their literal meaning: hell delivers punishment to those who commit moral sins, and "tongues" can mean whips. The speaker's highly self-critical guilt, which she uses her own literal "tongue" to voice, is so wounding as to be comparable to being beaten with flaming whips in hell. But line 3 offers a further twist: rather than being razor sharp, as one would expect, these tongues are as "dull" (meaning blunt) as the tongues of the three-headed dog Cerberus, who guarded the gates to the underworld in Ancient Greek myth. This description implies that the speaker's guilt actually has little effect in purifying her of her sins. Epizeuxis in this section ("dull, dull"; "the sin, the sin") emphasizes the repetitive yet futile nature of the speaker's self-criticism and obsession with sin. The allusion to Cerberus, and the surprising description of a terrifying beast as "dull," "wheez[ing]", and "fat," serve to further heighten the sense of futility. It is as if the speaker is only just inside the gates of hell, exhausted but still not suffering enough—she needs to go further and to suffer more, if she is to achieve purification.
Lines 5-7 summarize these ideas of futility: "tongues" are "incapable" (meaning unable) of "licking clean" the speaker's "aguey tendon" (feverish muscles) or her "sin." Again thinking of "tongues" as referring to the speaker's own voice, these lines suggest that the speaker may be worried that even writing this poem won't do anything to cleanse her sin. Moreover, the fact that both "aguey tendon" and "the sin, the sin" are objects of the same verb phrase, "licking clean," further emphasizes the closeness between the physical sensations of sickness and the mental torment of guilt.
The most common metrical foot in these lines is the iamb (da-dum)—for instance, "The tongues of hell." But two exceptions, where two stressed syllables follow one another, break up this pattern. In both cases, the two stressed words fall on either side of a caesura: "dull, dull" and "dull, fat." Three of these four words are the same, so the shift in meter highlights the repetitive dullness of fever and of guilt, while "fat" likewise has connotations of slowness and ineffectiveness.
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Lines 8-15
The tinder cries. ...
... their own element. -
Lines 15-22
They will not ...
... Devilish leopard! -
Lines 23-27
Radiation turned it ...
... sin. The sin. -
Lines 28-33
Darling, all night ...
... make me retch. -
Lines 34-39
I am too ...
... and infinitely expensive. -
Lines 40-45
Does not my ...
... I love, I -
Lines 46-50
Am a pure ...
... pink things mean! -
Lines 51-54
Not you, nor ...
... To Paradise.
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“Fever 103°” Symbols
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Fire
The symbol of fire recurs in different forms throughout the poem. Fire's two main qualities are heat and light. Light traditionally represents knowledge, since it dispels darkness in the same way as knowledge dispels ignorance. Heat can represent anger and destruction (as in the torturous "tongues of hell" and the painful cry of the "tinder"), but here it mainly represents lust and sexual desire.
This symbol becomes particularly prominent in lines 9-10, with the image of a "snuffed candle." Since candles are used to give off light and light represents knowledge, this image represents the extinguishing of knowledge. The resulting ignorance, represented by the "low smokes" that "roll" from the extinguished candle, is shown to lead to a variety of violent and cruel actions, including the "choking" of the "aged and the meek."
The later instances of fire as a symbol refer to the speaker herself. In line 36, she says "I am a lantern"; lanterns perform a similar function to candles, but this one is not extinguished, since by this point in the poem the speaker has ascended out of her feverish delirium and shed her feelings of guilt, becoming pure. Therefore she is able to serve as an example of self-knowledge, lighting the way for those around her, much as a lantern or "moon" would.
Lines 40 (starting "Does not my heat"), 42 (starting "Glowing and coming"), and 45-47 ("The beads" through "Virgin") focus on the speaker's heat, specifically how it has transformed from something hellish into something divine. "Beads of hot metal fly" from her, as if she is able to melt even solid metal. Then, in perhaps the most striking instance of the symbol of fire, she calls herself a "pure acetylene / Virgin"; acetylene is an inflammable gas, which can explode if brought into contact with fire. This moment is a symbolic indication that she has thrown off her guilt at lust and embraced her own sexual heat, proclaiming that it makes her as pure as the Virgin Mary.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 2: “The tongues of hell”
- Line 8: “The tinder cries.”
- Lines 9-10: “The indelible smell / Of a snuffed candle!”
- Line 29: “I have been flickering, off, on, off, on.”
- Lines 36-38: “ I am a lantern—— / My head a moon / Of Japanese paper,”
- Line 40: “Does not my heat astound you! And my light!”
- Line 42: “Glowing and coming and going, flush on flush.”
- Lines 45-47: “The beads of hot metal fly, and I love, I / Am a pure acetylene / Virgin”
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Virgin
A virgin literally means someone who has not had sex. However, given the religious imagery throughout the poem, the appearance of the word here almost certainly also refers to the Virgin, that is, to Mary, Jesus Christ's mother. In Catholicism, the veneration of Mary is second in importance only to the veneration due to God. She symbolizes the perfect woman, embodying all the traditional feminine virtues to the highest degree: these include motherhood, charity, obedience, patience, purity, and chastity.
The last of these is the most relevant for this poem: it refers to those who choose to abstain from sex. Traditionally chastity has been seen as inseparable from purity. It is therefore something of an oxymoron for the speaker to call herself a "pure acetylene / Virgin," given that acetylene, an inflammable gas, is part of the "heat" symbolism (see previous entry), and represents her embrace of her own sexual appetites. By combining the ideas of sexual heat and Marian purity in one phrase, the speaker seeks to redefine notions of purity: no longer does it require chastity, but instead a self-sufficient embrace of one's own sexuality.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 46-47: “a pure acetylene / Virgin”
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Leopard
The syntax of lines 20-22 ("The ghastly orchid ...") means that the "Devilish leopard" could refer to the orchid, as well as be an independent image. Both the flower and animal are colorful, and the description of the former "hanging its hanging garden" evokes execution by hanging, which chimes with the leopard's violent nature. In addition to these basic associations, traditionally the leopard has also represented lust, one of the speaker's main "sins." For instance in lines 31-36 of canto 1 of Dante's Inferno, the speaker comes across the animal while lost in a dark forest:
Ed ecco, quasi al cominciar de l'erta,
una lonza leggera e presta molto,
che di pel macolato era coverta;e non mi si partia dinanzi al volto,
anzi ’mpediva tanto il mio cammino,
ch’i’ fui per ritornar più volte vòlto.(English: And here, almost at the start of the slope, was a leopard, agile and quick, covered with a spotted coat; he would not retreat before my face, instead he so impeded my path that I often turned round to return.) By placing this symbol among so much violent imagery, the speaker seems to be blaming her own lust, and even lust more generally, for the most murderous crimes.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 22: “Devilish leopard!”
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“Fever 103°” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Rhetorical Question
The poem begins with two rhetorical questions: "Pure? What does it mean?" The first question is a condensed form of the implied question that the speaker asks throughout the first half of the poem—essentially, "Am I pure or not?" As the vivid descriptions of her hellish state make clear, the answer to this first question is very much no; she's tortured by the "tongues of hell" and obsessed with thoughts of "sin," both her own personal sin and the broader sins of a world full of war and cruelty.
The second question rhetorical question—"What does it mean?"—destabilizes the reader's image of the speaker even further; not only is she not pure, she does not even know what the word "pure" means. This initial confusion emphasizes just how far the speaker has to travel in her journey from guilt and "sin" to "Paradise." The poem as a whole traces her journey towards answering these two questions, so that by the end she is not only pure; she is "too pure for [...] anyone." Additionally, the use of rhetorical questions at the poem's start draws the reader into the speaker's confusion and anguish; by presenting questions that feel impossible to answer, the speaker subtly suggests that whether we like it or not, everyone in the world has to struggle with challenging questions of purity and sin, just as the speaker does here.
Where rhetorical question appears in the poem:- Line 1: “Pure? What does it mean?”
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Allusion
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Metaphor
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Epizeuxis
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Assonance
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Anaphora
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Diacope
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Apostrophe
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Enjambment
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Caesura
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Consonance
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"Fever 103°" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Pure
- Tongues
- Cerberus
- Aguey
- Tinder
- Indelible
- Isadora's Scarves
- Element
- Trundle
- Meek
- Hothouse
- Ghastly
- Orchid
- Hiroshima
- Lecher
- Camellia
- Flush
- Acetylene
- Cherubim
- Petticoats
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(Location in poem: Line 1: “Pure”; Line 34: “pure ”; Line 46: “pure ”)
The first word of the poem refers both to the literal fever suffered by the speaker and to her moral dilemma. The first meaning is "free from any contamination"—in other words, no longer sick. The second meaning is "untainted by immorality, especially that of a sexual nature."
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Fever 103°”
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Form
"Fever 103°" does not follow any traditional poetic form. However, it cannot really be called an example of true free verse because it is composed entirely of tercets (three-line stanzas). These may represent the period of three days and nights over which the speaker's purification takes place. This is also a biblical allusion to the period of Lent, which lasts 40 days and 40 nights, a time during which Christians purify themselves of their sins by fasting. Such rituals, which are reenacted every year, mimic the speaker's repeated "flickering, off, on, off, on" and her trying to drink "Lemon water, chicken / Water" again and again. By constructing the poem out of tercets, Plath gives it a ritualistic, cyclical structure, making the reader mimic the speaker's experience through the act of reading.
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Meter
Despite its very regular form (it's written entirely in tercets), the poem lacks a consistent meter. Most of the feet are iambs (da-dum), but each line has a variable number of poetic feet. Most of the lines are rather short, but Plath often interrupts a series of short lines with a line containing a higher number of stressed syllables.
For instance, take lines 10-12:
Of a snuffed | candle!
Love, love, the low smokes roll
From me | like Is- | ador- | a's scarves, | I'm in | a frightThere is no pattern here; line 10 consists of an anapest (da-da-dum) followed by a trochee (dum-da), for a total of two stressed syllables. Line 11 has five stresses and only one unstressed syllable. Line 12 is the only clearly ordered one here, an example of iambic hexameter (six feet in a line). This chaotic meter mimics the speaker's unbalanced state: she is sick with fever and is beset by hallucinogenic images, many of which are gruesome and disturbing.
Even when the speaker reaches a state of purity at the end of the poem, the meter remains inconsistent. Take lines 43-45:
I think | I am go- | ing up,
I think | I may rise——
The beads | of hot | metal | fly, and I | love, IThe number of stresses varies (three, then two, then five), and so does the type of feet, even within each line. Take the last one, which is somewhat awkward to scan at all: it begins with two iambs, then has a trochee, then a dactyl (dum-da-da), and finally another trochee. The reason for this continued lack of order may be that the speaker's purified state is the opposite of what one expects of people traditionally deemed "pure," such as nuns and monks. These people are expected to be sober, organized, and rigid—but the speaker is enthusiastically embracing exactly the opposite way of living. Her redefinition of purity is wild: she compares herself to "acetylene," an explosive gas, and aims to "astound," and the poem's chaotic meter reflects this radical new perspective.
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Rhyme Scheme
"Fever 103°" follows no regular rhyme scheme. There are only two end-rhymes in the whole poem: "meek / weak" and "in / sin." In the first case this makes sense, as both the "meek" and the "weak" are grouped together as victims of the choking "smokes." In the second instance the rhyme serves to end the sub-section of the poem that focuses on images relating to violence and death, summing them up all together as "sin." There are also some instances of internal rhyme here and there (such as "too pure for you" and a slant rhyme in "All by myself"), which subtly highlight some of the key turns in the speaker's racing thoughts.
Overall, the lack of much rhyme (like the lack of regular meter) reinforces the poem's sense of chaos and disorder. At first, this chaos seems violent and hellish, but as the poem progresses, the speaker slowly concludes that purity can be chaotic, too—indeed, her most striking image of herself is of a radiant, unstable "acetylene / Virgin" who might explode at any moment.
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“Fever 103°” Speaker
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The speaker of "Fever 103°" is likely a woman, which is indicated in the poem by her discussion of her male lovers and her petticoats, which are traditionally a feminine item of clothing. Her comparison of herself to Isadora Duncan and her description of herself as a camellia also support this interpretation, since Duncan was a famously independent woman and flowers (like camellias) are often used as symbols of female sexuality. However, while this guide uses female pronouns for the speaker, it's important to note that the poem doesn't explicitly state that the speaker is a woman, and while the speaker's experience may mirror some aspects of Plath's own life, the poem isn't necessarily autobiographical.
Likewise, the poem doesn't reveal many details about the speaker herself or what her life is like. The main thing that's clear is that she suffers from a high fever, which causes hallucinations—in medical terms, 103° is generally considered the temperature at which this starts to occur. She has a lover, whom she refers to as "Love," "Darling" and "you" at different points, and it is implied in lines 51-52 ("Nor him / Nor him, nor him") that she has or had relationships with other men.
The only other thing about the speaker that's clear from the poem itself is that she is obsessed with ideas around her "sins," especially lust, and that this causes her immensely painful guilt. Going through this pain is not, however, something to be avoided, but rather a necessary process that she undergoes in order to purify herself. The fever of the title is in this sense a metaphor: just as physically recovering from a high fever often involves throwing up, sweating, and digesting lots of fluids, all of which are processes that get rid of things from inside the body, so the speaker's moral purification depends on acknowledging and getting rid of her guilt. By the end of the poem she has succeeded, having shed her old self and become someone new. She is in a state of bliss, described as ascending "To Paradise."
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“Fever 103°” Setting
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There are very few clues as to the poem's setting. Most words relating to setting are part of elaborate metaphors, such as the "gate" to hell, the "Hothouse," and the "hanging garden." The only phrase that can definitively be said to locate the poem in a literal sense comes in line 30: "The sheets grow heavy as a lecher's kiss." This confirms that the speaker is in bed, sweating as she recovers from her fever.
In a broader sense, the setting could be said to be largely within the speaker's own mind, as her thoughts race first through hellish imagery of sin and punishment and then, later, to joyful and celebratory visions of her own radical salvation. This journey, though imaginary, takes both speaker and reader around the world and back in time, visiting such varied locations as Hiroshima after the atomic bombing and even "Paradise" itself.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Fever 103°”
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Literary Context
"Fever 103°" was written in 1962 but published posthumously in the collection Ariel (1965), after Plath died by suicide in 1963. At this point in her career, she was relatively well-known, in part because she was the wife of poet Ted Hughes, whom she had met at Cambridge and who at this point was widely celebrated. She had herself only published one previous book of poetry, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960). Plath would only achieve her worldwide renown many years after her death.
"Fever 103°" is an example of confessional poetry, a style that emerged in the U.S. during the 1950s. Confessional poetry focuses on deeply personal phenomena, including private or even taboo subjects such as mental illness, self-harm, sexuality, and suicide. Other practitioners of confessional poetry include Robert Lowell, John Berryman, and Anne Sexton. In this sense, this poem is typical of Plath's work; poems such as "Daddy," "I Want, I Want," and "Medusa" touch on similarly personal subjects.
However, the distinctive hallucinogenic imagery of this poem is not as present in The Colossus. The almost abstract quality of this and many other poems in Ariel was a development that may have been a result of Plath's writing habits; in the last months of 1962 she wrote in frantic bursts, completing at least 26 of the poems that later made up the collection, including "Fever 103°." It was a period of isolation for Plath, as she was left at home to look after her two children (who were often sick) in a house without a telephone, whose pipes had frozen during one of the coldest winters in 100 years. She suffered from a final deep depression (a condition that had afflicted her all her life) before dying by suicide in February 1963. The disturbing imagery and sense of domestic entrapment in "Fever 103°" may relate to Plath's life and feelings at the time, but the poem itself doesn't identify Plath as the speaker or indicate that it's intended to be autobiographical.
After Plath's death, there was a controversy surrounding the publication of Ariel. Ted Hughes published the collection but disregarded his wife's original plan, deleting 12 poems, adding others not intended for the book, and re-ordering them. In 2004 an edition was published that follows Plath's original plan.
Historical Context
As a typical example of confessional poetry, "Fever 103°" focuses on the personal over the historical. There is only one reference in the poem with which to date it, to the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, and reading it for the first time without any context, one could reasonably assume that it could have been written at any point since then. The speaker's journey, from guilt at her own sexual desires to a celebration of them, could be seen as a result of the advances of feminism during the first half of the 20th century. However, the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s had yet to get into full swing, and the poem's openness on this subject is more a result of confessional poets being ahead of the curve, rather than a reflection of the spirit of the times.
The poem's frequent references to acts of extreme violence (such as Hiroshima and the possible allusion to the Holocaust in the image of the "aged and the meek" "Choking") place it within the broad range of artistic responses to the horrors of World War Two. The war ended only 17 years before the poem was written, and its effects were still being felt throughout Britain, where Plath composed it. The country was in an economic slump from debts accrued fighting the war, much of its infrastructure was still devastated, and rationing had only ended in 1954. Although this poem is a highly personal work, through it Plath nevertheless shows herself to be concerned with and affected by the worst aspects of recent history.
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More “Fever 103°” Resources
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External Resources
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Sylvia Plath's Life and Work — A detailed yet accessible introduction to Plath's life and career.
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Reconstructing Plath's Original Vision for Ariel — Plath's own daughter discusses the controversy over Ted Hughes's version of Ariel, and how Plath's own version was reconstructed.
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Sylvia Plath reading "Fever 103°" — Listen to the author read the poem for the BBC.
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Interview with Plath and Hughes — A rare recorded interview with the two poets.
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Carol Ann Duffy on Sylvia Plath — The UK's former poet laureate describes her relationship with Plath's work.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Sylvia Plath
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