Red
Red was your colour.
If not red, then white. But red
Was what was wrapped around you.
Blood-red. Was it blood?
Was it red-ochre, for warming the dead?
Haematite to make immortal
The precious heirloom bones, the family bones.
Techniques: contradiction.
Tidbits: the Red-ochre and haematite show us his belief in the occult.
When you had your way finally
Our room was red. A judgement chamber. <- She is judging him
Shut casket for gems. The carpet of blood <- Casket (another word for coffin), what are the gems?
Patterned with darkenings, congealments.
The curtains - ruby corduroy blood,
Sheer blood-falls from ceiling to floor.
The cushions the same. The same
Raw carmine along the window-seat.
A throbbing cell. Aztec alter-temple. <- aztecs tore out the heart of their sacraficial victims to keep the sun rising.
Only the bookshelves escaped into whiteness. <- this is where it is because? books = mind, intelligence.
And outside the window
Poppies thin and wrinkle-frail <- poppies - opium and also rememberance
As the skin on blood,
Salvias, that your father named you after,
like blood lobbing from a gash,
And roses, the heart’s last gout,
Catastrophic, arterial, doomed.
(note the linking here - doomed to the You of Hughes' Birthday Letters)
Your velvet long full skirt, a swathe of blood,
A lavish burgundy.
Your lips a dipped, deep crimson. <- as if she'd been drinking blood
You reveled in red. <- alliteration
I felt it raw - like the crisp gauze edges
Of a stiffening wound. I could touch
The open vein in it, the crusted gleam. <- he can cause her pain
Everything you painted you painted white
Then splashed it with roses, defeated it,
Leaned over it, dripping roses,
Weeping roses, and more roses,
Then sometimes, among them, a little bluebird.
Blue was better for you. Blue was wings.
Kingfisher blue silks from San Francisco <- San Fransisco = America = Plath's home
Folded your pregnancy
In crucible caresses.
Blue was your kindly spirit - not a ghoul
But electrified, a guardian, thoughtful.
In the pit of red
You hid from the bone-clinic whiteness. <- her fear of hospitals
But the jewel you lost was blue. <- the scarf he took at their first meeting - she remembers it as red, he remembers it as blue.
Also Red White and Blue are shared colours of the American and British flags. I hope this was of some help.
And another thing:
http://hsc.csu.edu.au/english/advanced/representation/truth/letters/title.html