What human characteristics does Plath attribute to the mushrooms? What effect does her use of personification have on the reader's understanding of the mushroom poem by Sylvia Plath?

Sylvia Plath characterizes the mushrooms as humans, with "toes" "noses" "soft fists" with no voice (women specifically).

This personification enables the readers to understand the inner motive of the poem, like that of a presentation of women and their status in society, regarded as inferior to the men.

Explanation:

Sylvia Plath's poem "Mushrooms" seem like it is about a bunch of mushrooms growing in a forest. But on deeper inspection, the poet personifies these mushrooms, making a much more serious reference which is the condition of women in society and their 'helplessness' and voicelessness.

Plath characterizes the mushrooms as women, with "toes", "noses", "soft fists" but "Perfectly voiceless". This presents the image of how women were the weaker sex, discriminated against, and inferior to the men.

Her use of personification in describing the mushrooms enables the readers to understand that the poem has a deeper meaning than just describe or talk about mushrooms and their 'lives' in the forest. Through this personification, we are able to understand the deeper meaning and intention of the poem as a depiction of women's status in society and their condition, being projected as the inferior gender.  

wheres the passage with the idiom underlined