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| The Applicant | |
|---|---|
| by Sylvia Plath | |
| Written | 1962 |
| Country | England |
| Language | English |
| Lines | 40 |
The Applicant (Poem)
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"The Applicant" is a poem written by American confessional poet Sylvia Plath on October 11th 1962. It was first published on January 17th 1963 in The London Magazine and was later republished in 1965 in Ariel alongside poems such as 'Daddy' and 'Lady Lazarus' two years after her death[1].
The poem is a satirical 'interview' that comments on the meaning of marriage, condemns gender stereotypes and details the loss of identity one feels when adhering to social expectations. The poem focuses on the role of women in a conventional marriage and Plath employs themes such as the conformity to gender norms. It was written a few days after Sylvia Plath’s decision to divorce Ted Hughes[2] and it has been interpreted as a comment on her isolation within that relationship and the lack of power women held in her society.
Biographical Background
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Before Ariel was published, Plath studied at Smith College, a liberal arts school in Massachusetts. Excelling there, she obtained a scholarship and attended the University of Cambridge in England, where she would meet her future spouse, Ted Hughes. Plath and Hughes met on February 25th, 1956 and were wed June 16th, 1956 at St George the Matyr, Holborn in London. Plath and Hughes had their first child, Frieda Hughes, on April 1st, 1960 and six months later, Plath published The colossus, her first collection of poetry, in October. Plath fell pregnant again, however had a miscarriage in February 1961. Plath later fell pregnant and gave birth to their son Nicholas Hughes in January of 1962. In 1962, Plath discovered that Hughes was having an affair and moved herself and her two children into a Yeats flat in London. During this time she wrote "The Applicant" alongside other poems featured in Ariel, such as "Daddy", "Tulips" and "Lady Lazarus". Not long after, Plath committed suicide by gas inhalation in her kitchen while her two children were sleeping. Not long after, Plath committed suicide by gas inhalation in her kitchen while her two children were sleeping.However, prior to writing 'The Applicant', Plath was notorious for her writings on a loss of identity and connection to the world in The Colossus, particularly in "The stones" and "Medallion". Plath herself notes that these poems show that "the speaker has utterly lost her sense of identity and relationship to the world"[3]. This confessional style of writing is carried on to her writings of Ariel, in particular, The Applicant.
Description
[edit]Structure, form and rhyme
[edit]Plath wrote the poem in free verse poem that consists of 40 lines. The poem was written with quintains and no regular rhyming scheme.
Subject Matter
[edit]Sylvia Plath’s poem “The Applicant” was composed with very satirical and condemning tones which included reprimanding the conventional way of living and the gender stereotypes that presented themselves within the public and private sphere of society[3]. Plath ridiculed the role of women in a conventional marriage which is linked to her marriage to Ted Hughes. Plath and her then husband Ted Hughes were married between 1956-1962 and had two children together. Plath’s second pregnancy ended in a miscarriage and Plath confessed that Hughes domestically abused her two days before the miscarriage[4]. In 1962, it was discovered that Hughes was having an affair with German Poet Assia Wevill which led to Plath and Hughes divorce[5].
Initially in “The Applicant”, Plath comments on the idea that women are something to fix a man, asking the applicant what is wrong with them and how can they be fixed. This, is furthered as the personified “it” is presented as the solution. This is a direct condemnation of the social hegemony that a woman was nothing more than a product to ‘fix’ a man.[2] Plath continues this metaphor throughout, emphasising that the woman is a powerless thing that is provided to the male with no choice in the matter, reflecting Plath’s isolation and feelings of being trapped in her relationship with Hughes. [2]
Interpretation
[edit]Margaret Freeman has interpreted "The Applicant" as an exploitation of the traditions of marriage; making a mockery of the sanctity of marriage through being structured with a "series of threes which invoke Anglican church banns, the language of the Anglican wedding ceremony, the institution of marriage, and, by extension, the biblical texts on which the idealised cultural model of Anglican marriage is based." Freeman has furthered this by noting that “will you marry it” is repeated three times throughout the poem, which “directly invokes the church banns, announced in the parish three times before a wedding to ask ‘if there is any just cause why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony.'”[2] Freeman has further interpreted this poem as a "discourse scenario between a speaker and an addressee about an object"[2] where there is no one clear speaker/addressee as there is an ambiguity that pervades the poem, "The object is the treat in the infantilising space, product in the sales space, daughter in the betrothal space, and bride in the marriage rite space.The addressee is the child, customer, applicant, and groom in the four respective spaces."[2] However, Freeman notes that there is a slip in the "blend" of the possible interpretations with that of the speaker as there could be links to a "father" figure in each of the scenarios but this connection is not "projected onto the speaker" to represent the lack of a relationship between Plath and her father.[2]
Manuela Moreira denotes that Plath employs the idea of gender stereotypes through the ambiguity of the genders of the "product" and "applicant". Though it is not specifically mentioned initially that the product is the woman, using phrases such as "To bring teacups and roll away headaches" alludes to a woman due to the notion that it was "part of a woman’s role to bring teacups and do whatever she was told, given her absence of agency, as demonstrated with the line “And do whatever you tell it.”"[6] Moreira further interprets the applicant as an indictment of the gender stereotypes in a conventional marriage stating that "the transgression of gender roles takes place, since the woman who had remained invisible, will accomplish the task of filling in the man’s empty head."[6] Moreira also interprets the applicant as a comment on the body of a woman, more specifically, the missing body of the female as "the female body lives incarcerated to be released as an objectified body."[6] Moreira's interpretation is linked to Plath's feelings of entrapment within her relationship and society.[6]
Critical Reception
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Editors, Biography.com (April 2, 2014). "Sylvia Plath Biography". The Biography.com website. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
{{cite web}}:|last=has generic name (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b c d e f g h Freeman, M. H. "The poem as complex blend: conceptual mappings of metaphor in Sylvia Plath's 'The Applicant'". Language and Literature. 14 (1): 25–44. ISSN 0963-9470.
- ^ a b Wootten, William (2015-06-01), "Sylvia Plath", The Alvarez Generation, Liverpool University Press, pp. 101–128, ISBN 978-1-78138-163-2, retrieved 2020-01-29
- ^ Kean, Danuta (2017-04-11). "Unseen Sylvia Plath letters claim domestic abuse by Ted Hughes". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-01-30.
- ^ Kirk, Connie Ann (2004). Sylvia Plath: A Biography. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-33214-2.
- ^ a b c d e Moreira, Manuela. "Transgressing Gender Normativity in Sylvia Plath's Ariel Poems".
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ Donnell, A.; Polkey, P. (2000-06-01). Representing Lives: Women and Auto/biography. Springer. ISBN 978-0-230-28744-0.
- ^ Gupta, Tanu; Sharma, Anju (2014-08-01). "Portrayal of Gender Roles in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath". Asian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities. 3: 142–147.