Examine how colour is used in Sylvia Plath's poem, Tulips.

In Plath's 'Tulips' the speaker uses a juxtaposition between the white and clinical depiction of the hospital with the excruciating 'redness' of the flowers to present her feelings of pain and anguish. The flowers represent a form of anchor that ties the speaker to life, when she so desperately wishes for absence and to be 'lying by myself quietly'. The images of whiteness: 'white walls', 'winter', being 'snowed-in', and 'light' create a sterile atmosphere that the speaker seems to find a sense of calm in, despite it seeming to the reader as a bleak and depressing setting. In juxtaposition, the tulips bring a refreshing vibrancy that causes the speaker emotional pain that is so strong it almost manifests itself in physical pain. The speaker notes that the 'vivid tulips eat my oxygen' and that they act as 'a dozen red lead sinkers around my neck', which turn the flowers from something connoting nature and beauty into something dangerous and harmful. One could understand this as the speaker warping and disfiguring images associated with colour in order to reflect her troubled mental state.