This post was created to satisfy the requirements of the CCC ENG 237 Digital Storytelling Project. Throughout the semester we have explored the body of work created by women writers in America from its conception as a country to the 1990's. Addressing the most recent chapters, we are tasked with assessing the contribution of one author in the latter half of the 20th century. While there are a number of formidable women to examine, I would like to propose that Sylvia Plath presents a unique contribution to not only the literary canon, but also provides an example a female writer who supersedes remarkable obstacles in her path to a becoming a fully realized artist and woman.
Selecting Plath might seem a little trite. Her tumultuous relationship with the writer Ted Hughes and the tragedy of her too young death by suicide have resulted in a legacy of fame and notoriety that some might see as artificially enhancing her posthumous image and body of work. However, the trajectory of her career and the quality of her final work belie that conclusion. In fact, the strength of her final work leaves readers and critics wondering to what heights Plath would have soared had her life lasted longer.
Like many of the female writers we have studied this semester, Sylvia was a precocious child. She was highly intelligent and was first published nationally just following her high school graduation. (Wikipedia) Despite suffering a major depressive episode and her first recorded suicide attempt, Plath was able to graduate from Smith College and move on to graduate work at Cambridge University. (Poetry Foundation)
It was at Cambridge that Sylvia met the fellow poet Ted Hughes. They married after a whirlwind courtship and Plath entered a period of domestic life in which she ostensibly shelved her ambitions to support her husband's career. While there was some truth to this Sylvia was also using this time to put together her first poetry collection The Colossus. The collection was warmly received but did not launch Plath's career as perhaps she had hoped. However, publishing the collection seemed to open the floodgates and Plath began writing more frequently. (Showalter 435)
By 1962 Hughes and Plath were separated due to Hughes' infidelity and potential spousal abuse and Plath was left as a single mother with two small children. (Kean) During this time of turmoil, Sylvia was writing at an inspiring pace. (Showalter 435) It seems that the emotional turmoil of her life inspired a focus and proclivity that would eventually result in some of her most technically profound and emotionally stirring work.
So how does this make Plath a pioneer in gender equality? It is, in fact, the normalcy of her path prior to her death that makes her ascendancy towards the end of her life truly remarkable. Unlike many women who ceded their ambitions to talented partners, Plath's star was on the rise. She had survived a youth filled with mental illness, she moved into typical domesticity, and when her domestic life was upended she dug deeply and passionately into her art and produced the most honest and powerful work of her career.
She did not build her image on embracing or eschewing feminist ideals. She lived her own honest life and used her art to share the struggles she encountered. While her death came far too early and has inspired curiosity, it is truly the power of her poetry and the consistent technical development of her work that have made her legacy so powerful. (Parker) Unlike Hughes, who has continued to profit off the sensationalism of their partnership, Plath's work and not her just tragic death continue to elevate her artistic reputation over time.
Sylvia Plath, "The Applicant" from The Collected Poems. Copyright © 2008 by Sylvia Plath.
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| Bettman/ Getty Images "Sylvia Plath Cropped." Poetry Foundation https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sylvia-plath |
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| "Sylvia Plath jpg." Wikipedia Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath#/media/File:Sylvia_Plath.jpg |
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| "Sylvia Plath at Cambridge." The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/review-who-is-sylvia-plath-1513371988 |
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| Fox, Andrew. "Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath in August 1956." The Guardian, Oct. 2015 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/01/did-sylvia-plath-final-suicide-note-name-final-lover |
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| Christy, Kevin. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/06/why-sylvia-plath-haunts-american-culture/309310/ |
She did not build her image on embracing or eschewing feminist ideals. She lived her own honest life and used her art to share the struggles she encountered. While her death came far too early and has inspired curiosity, it is truly the power of her poetry and the consistent technical development of her work that have made her legacy so powerful. (Parker) Unlike Hughes, who has continued to profit off the sensationalism of their partnership, Plath's work and not her just tragic death continue to elevate her artistic reputation over time.
The Applicant
By Sylvia Plath
First, are you our sort of a person?
Do you wear
A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,
A brace or a hook,
Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch,
Stitches to show something's missing? No, no? Then
How can we give you a thing?
Stop crying.
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. Here is a hand
To fill it and willing
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do whatever you tell it.
Will you marry it?
It is guaranteed
To thumb shut your eyes at the end
And dissolve of sorrow.
We make new stock from the salt.
I notice you are stark naked.
How about this suit——
Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.
Will you marry it?
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they'll bury you in it.
Now your head, excuse me, is empty.
I have the ticket for that.
Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
Well, what do you think of that?
Naked as paper to start
But in twenty-five years she'll be silver,
In fifty, gold.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk, talk.
It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a hole, it's a poultice.
You have an eye, it's an image.
My boy, it's your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.
Kean, Danuta. "Unseen Sylvia Plath Letters Claim Domestic Abuse by Ted Hughes." The Guardian, 11 April, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/11/unseen-sylvia-plath-letters-claim-domestic-abuse-by-ted-hughes
Parker, James. "Why Sylvia Plath Still Haunts American Culture." The Atlantic, June 2013. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/06/why-sylvia-plath-haunts-american-culture/309310/
"Sylvia Plath." Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sylvia-plath
"Sylvia Plath." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath
Showalter, Elaine. A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. Print.