Character analysis
The Midwife
in Morning Song by Sylvia Plath
In Sylvia Plath's poem "Morning Song," the Midwife is a brief but symbolically significant figure introduced in the opening stanza. She embodies the act of birth, delivering the newborn's first cry with a slap that kicks off the poem's emotional journey. Although she occupies just a single line—"The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry / Took its place among the elements"—her action catalyzes the speaker's complex feelings of detachment, awe, and tentative love.
The Midwife acts more as a symbol of the clinical, impersonal nature of childbirth than as a fully developed character. Her slap is quick and professional, lacking any sentiment, which starkly contrasts with the speaker's emotional ambivalence. While the Midwife demonstrates practiced efficiency, the speaker grapples to find maternal instincts, famously likening herself to "a fat gold watch" instead of a nurturing presence. In this way, the Midwife serves as a foil, with her confidence underscoring the speaker's uncertainty about her new role.
Thematically, the Midwife symbolizes the line between non-existence and life, as well as the divide between the impersonal biological world and the complicated personal world of parenthood. By transferring the newborn from the realm of pure nature into the speaker's care, she sets up the poem's central conflict—the speaker's struggle to overcome emotional distance and embrace the child as her own.
Who is The Midwife?
The Midwife in Sylvia Plath's "Morning Song" is the poem's most transient figure, present for exactly one gesture before vanishing entirely from the text. She appears in the opening lines — "The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry / Took its place among the elements" — and her exit is as abrupt as her entrance. She has no name, no interiority, no voice of her own. What she does have is agency: hers is the first human action in the poem, and it is the action upon which everything else depends. She is defined entirely by her function, a professional who performs a precise, time-worn task and then steps aside, leaving the messy emotional aftermath to others.
What is The Midwife's arc and motivation?
Because the Midwife occupies only a single line, she has no arc in the conventional sense. Her motivation is purely procedural — she slaps the newborn's footsoles to provoke the first breath, the first cry, and by all medical and social convention, her job is done. She does not linger to admire her work or comfort the mother. This absence of sentiment is not cruelty; it is competence. Her "arc," such as it is, moves from clinical preparation to efficient action to immediate withdrawal, a trajectory so contained and certain that it throws the speaker's far longer, far more uncertain arc into sharp relief. The Midwife always knows what she is doing; the speaker never quite does.
What are The Midwife's key moments?
The single key moment is the slap itself. It is important to read this action carefully: Plath does not describe the Midwife cradling the child or speaking reassuringly. The verb chosen — slapped — carries a bluntness bordering on violence, yet it is understood as standard, even loving in its purpose. That paradox is essential. The slap produces the "bald cry" that then "took its place among the elements," a phrase that elevates the newborn's voice to something cosmic, something belonging to wind and water and fire. The Midwife's mundane, practiced gesture has therefore cosmic consequence. She is the hinge between non-being and being, between silence and voice — and the poem's entire emotional landscape opens up on the other side of that single, unrepeated blow.
What are The Midwife's most important relationships?
With the newborn: The Midwife's relationship to the child is entirely physical and causal. Her slap is not affection; it is initiation. She summons the child into voice and, by extension, into selfhood. There is an odd intimacy in being the first person to touch a new life, yet Plath grants the Midwife none of the tenderness that intimacy might imply. The relationship is one of function over feeling.
With the speaker: The contrast here is the Midwife's chief symbolic role. She completes her task with zero ambivalence — she does not wonder whether she loves what she has helped bring into the world — and then she leaves. The speaker, by contrast, remains in the poem for five more stanzas, struggling through images of disconnection (the "cloud," the "statue," the "moth-breath") before arriving at a tentative, watchful wonder. The Midwife's breezy professional exit makes the speaker's inability to simply feel motherhood all the more stark and isolating.
With the father: Both the Midwife and the father are witnesses present at the birth who nonetheless exist outside the speaker's psychological crisis. Neither is granted interiority. Together they form a kind of silent audience, competent and composed, against which the speaker's emotional turbulence registers all the more acutely.
How is The Midwife connected to the other characters?
- The Newborn Child
The Midwife's slap on the newborn's footsoles is the poem's first action, physically summoning the child into life and voice. Her gesture is the direct cause of the newborn's inaugural cry, making her the literal agent of the child's entry into the world.
- The Speaker (Mother)
The Midwife's efficient, emotionally neutral act of delivery stands in stark contrast to the speaker's anguished ambivalence about motherhood. By completing her role swiftly and exiting the poem, the Midwife leaves the speaker alone to grapple with feelings of disconnection and slowly awakening love.
- The Father
Both the Midwife and the Father are present at the birth but remain peripheral to the speaker's inner life. Like the Father, the Midwife is a witness to the newborn's arrival rather than a figure who shares the speaker's psychological burden, reinforcing the speaker's sense of isolation.
Questions readers ask about The Midwife
What does the Midwife do in "Morning Song"?
The Midwife slaps the newborn's footsoles to provoke the first breath and cry, then immediately vanishes from the poem. Her single action — described in the lines "The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry / Took its place among the elements" — is the catalyst for everything that follows. She performs a precise, time-worn medical task with total efficiency and zero sentiment, then steps aside, leaving the speaker alone with the emotional aftermath.
Why does Plath use the word "slapped" to describe the Midwife's action?
Plath's choice of slapped sits between routine medical care and blunt aggression, suggesting that entry into the world carries an inherent edge of violence. The word is clinical and efficient, yet it borders on harshness — and that paradox is essential. The same gesture that seems almost brutal is also the one that produces the newborn's first cry and elevates it to something cosmic, "among the elements." Plath implies that birth itself is a kind of wounding into existence.
How does the Midwife's relationship with the newborn differ from the speaker's?
The Midwife's relationship to the newborn is entirely physical and causal: her slap summons the child into voice and selfhood, but carries no tenderness or emotional investment. The speaker's relationship, by contrast, is the poem's central struggle — marked by ambivalence, disconnection, and slowly awakening love. The Midwife initiates life and exits; the speaker remains for five more stanzas wrestling with what that life means to her.
How does the Midwife function as a foil to the speaker in "Morning Song"?
The Midwife acts as a foil by embodying the emotional certainty the speaker entirely lacks. She completes her task with zero ambivalence — she never wonders whether she loves what she has helped bring into the world — and promptly leaves. The speaker, unable to simply feel motherhood, lingers through images of disconnection like "a fat gold watch." The Midwife's breezy professional exit makes the speaker's psychological crisis all the more stark and isolating.
Is the Midwife a fully developed character in "Morning Song"?
No — the Midwife is a symbolic figure rather than a fully developed character. She has no name, no interiority, and no voice of her own, occupying exactly one line before disappearing entirely. Plath defines her solely by her function: she represents the clinical, impersonal side of childbirth, the hinge between non-existence and life, contrasted with the messy personal world of parenthood the speaker must navigate alone.
What is the Midwife's symbolic role in the poem's larger themes?
The Midwife symbolizes the boundary between non-being and existence, and between the impersonal biological world and the complicated personal world of parenthood. Her practiced, sentiment-free gesture transfers the newborn from the realm of pure nature into the speaker's care, setting up the poem's central conflict. She represents biological process stripped of feeling, and the poem's emotional journey can be read as the speaker's slow movement away from that impersonal threshold toward genuine maternal connection.
How does the Midwife's relationship with the father reinforce the speaker's isolation?
Both the Midwife and the father are present at the birth yet remain peripheral to the speaker's inner life, forming a silent, composed audience that never shares her psychological burden. Neither is granted interiority or emotional conflict. Placed alongside each other, they highlight how the speaker stands alone in her ambivalence — surrounded by figures who either perform competently or witness calmly, while she is the only one struggling to feel what she is expected to feel.
Why does the Midwife disappear after only one line?
The Midwife disappears because her role is purely procedural: once the slap is delivered and the cry is drawn out, her job is finished by both medical convention and Plath's design. Her abrupt exit is structurally deliberate — it leaves the speaker suddenly and completely alone, amplifying her sense of isolation. The Midwife's absence after that single blow sustains thematic tension across the poem, as the consequences of her one action ripple through every image that follows.
Use this in your essay
The Midwife as foil: Argue that the Midwife's emotional neutrality is Plath's deliberate structural device to expose the speaker's alienation. How does the contrast between professional efficiency and maternal ambivalence interrogate cultural expectations of instinctive mother-love?
Language and violence: The verb *slapped* sits uneasily between routine medical care and aggression. Build a thesis around Plath's word choice and what it suggests about the nature of entry into the world
is birth inherently a kind of wounding?
Absence as presence: The Midwife disappears after one line, yet her action echoes through every subsequent image. How does Plath use a character's disappearance to sustain thematic tension across the poem?
The impersonal and the personal: The Midwife represents biological process stripped of feeling. Trace the poem's movement from the impersonal (the slap, the elements, the museum) toward the personal (the mother rising at night, listening). What does this trajectory suggest about the construction of maternal identity?
Agency and passivity: The Midwife is the poem's only figure who acts without hesitation. Compare her decisive agency to the speaker's watchful, reactive posture. What does Plath imply about who holds power at the threshold of new life?