Sylvia Plath takes an ordinary task, cooking Sunday lunch, and finds symbolism and meaning beyond the domestic. She draws significance from the heat of a roast joint, applying it to Christianity, persecution of heretics and the Holocaust. A core idea is the contrast between a masculine deity that demands sacrifice, and maternal love as embodied in the title, clearly the Virgin Mary. Plath’s vision of the world is bleak and pessimistic— negative associations follow each other. The Eucharist is diminished to a Sunday dinner, and the Covenant between God and humankind has become deadly. Plath then applies these negatives to herself. However, though the victims of the fire do not die, implying that the process of burning has somehow transformed and purified them, the overall message is of the inevitable cycle of destruction. There is one unifying theme; holocaust.

Structure
The poem is a typical Plath construction, seven stanzas of three lines each. There is no rhyme scheme, sentences and phrases vary in length, some just one word.

Language and Imagery
Plath moves from a practical task, draws significance from it through a series of metaphors, which lead from one symbolic idea to the next. She uses colour — gold, grey — a bird, fire, bodily wounds; all familiar Plath motifs, to convey a powerful if harsh message.