Both Judith Wright and Sylvia Plath explore different feminist views in their poetry in order to highlight the freedom that comes with the empowerment of women and the escapement from the boundaries of social expectations. Wright uses stylistic devices such as punctuation, oxymoron, metaphor, and personification to discuss the insecurities she has with her body in her poem ‘Naked Girl and Mirror’. The oxymoron, “I see you are lovely, hateful naked girl”, depicts the internal struggle she deals with that centres on her self-image. The world has metaphorically detached Wright’s mind from her body and this encourages her to write with a more feminist view in order to remind her listeners that she has a soul and her gender is not all she is. …show more content…
In her poem ‘Ariel’, she describes stumbling on, “heels and knees”, and compares it to Ariel’s transformation from a mermaid to a human to depict Plath’s coming out of her shell. The feministic tone of the poem talks about the issue of women being in bad situations and the struggle of trying to find the motivation to escape and transform into an improved version of herself. Both poets use their poetry to explore different feminist views in order to discuss the freedom of empowering women; the poems convey the boundaries of social expectations and how this has limited the authors in their personal lives which serves as an encouragement to all listeners of their poetry.
Furthermore, Wright, Plath, and Amy Winehouse explore the limitations of being confined in a mentally abusive relationship in order to highlight the importance of freedom in all of their respective pieces. Winehouse explores being in a relationship with a man who only stays with her for her wealth through techniques such as metaphors, colloquialisms, and similes. In a metaphor, she describes herself going, “back to black”, whenever her husband is unfaithful in their relationship. Being confined in a relationship with a man who detrimentally effects Winehouse’s emotional health causes her to fall back into the depression she has been struggling with for
Sylvia Plath may not have had the perfect life,but she always stuck to her view on how women should be treated in society. She was a feminist and because she was trapped in a bad marriage, she wanted the world to know women do not have to please a man to be happy. In two of her poems titled “Strumpet Song” and “Tinker Jack and the Tidy Wives” she makes remarks on women wanting to please men. In “Strumpet Song” she writes about prostitution, “ With white frost gone and all dreams not worth much, after a leans day work, times comes round for that foul slut”. Sylvia doesn't like that the man has to be in charge. In her second poem “Tinker Jack and the Tidy Wives” she writes, “Come lady bring that pot,gone black of polish and whatever pans this mending master should trim back to shape”. In this poem Sylvia writes about a women pleasing a man based on her looks. The idea on plastic surgery, a women having to change her body to please a man.
Louise Halfe’s “Body Politics” challenges the qualities and behaviour of the idealized feminine woman by contrasting the stereotypical “city woman” with a more masculine “real woman.” The poem’s speaker describes her mother’s opinion of what it means to be a real woman, which is seen through “Mama said.” Throughout the poem, the speaker uses vivid imagery to create a stark contrast between the idealized feminine “city woman” and a “real woman” who does not conform to the feminine gender norm. To begin with, the title of the poem itself can be viewed as an obvious critique of the feminine ideal. By definition a body politic is a group of people “considered as a collective unit” (Merriam-Webster). This is significant because in Butler’s theory, she emphasizes that a person’s gender can vary depending on a given situation, and therefore women cannot be grouped together and defined exclusively by their feminine qualities. Instead, she argues that women should be viewed as individuals capable of possessing both masculine and feminine behaviour. This belief relates directly to the poem’s title, as Halfe is clearly making a statement on the manner in which patriarchal societies expect women to conform to a singular feminine ideal. Moreover, it illustrates how women’s bodies become a political site for the masculinist culture to impose feminine gender on. With consideration to the title’s reference to a homogeneous group of women, it is interesting that stanzas two through four all
The poem “Daddy” remains one of the most controversial modern poems ever written. It has elicited a variety of distinct reactions. Although it begins with open simplicity and a natural tone, the subject matter is the stuff of nightmares rather than anything near innocent (Smith 5). It is a dark, surreal, and sometimes painful allegory which uses metaphor and other devices to carry an idea of a girl finally freeing herself against her father. It is complicated to comprehend for some. Several scholars have viewed, criticized, and the also drawn contractions at the heart of its meaning. Sylvia Plath's main intention was to make her poem relevant to the people. The poem is a powerful expression of male chauvinism as it depicts men as dominant and aggressive towards women.
Two Ariel poems "Cut" and "Getting There" do not exhibit a full rebirth but rather exploit "the female body's victimization to mover towards new self-perceptions (Bundtzen 247)." In both poems the female body "remains passive, acted upon by the mind's transforming powers" (Bundtzen 247). In "Cut" the amputation of the thumb "is a symbol of female castration;" she became a "dirty girl," unable to be a pure female any longer. "Plath understands her self-amputation as an acting out of her self-hatred as a woman, she is deficient by virtue of her female wound" (Bundtzen 247-248). The speaker is cut while doing her duty and she unconsciously tries to stop it by cutting off her finger.
The Little Mermaid is a perfect depiction of the typical teenage heroine who is striving to find happiness in her own life, but is restricted by the wicked femme fatale who attempts to destroy all that is good, and sabotage the heroine’s happy ending. Our teenage heroine in this case would be Ariel, the 16-year-old daughter of Triton, the king of the ocean. While Ariel comes from royalty and is praised for her beauty, youth, and innocence, her bright and independent self undergoes a physical transformation that leads her to become a mute doll who is focused on seizing a kiss from the prince, and winning his heart. On the other hand we have Ursula, who was exiled by Triton to live a lonely and miserable life. Ursula undergoes her own transformation where her evil ways allow her to steal Ariel’s voice for herself, and use it to seduce the prince to marry her in order to demonstrate power and control. Although Ariel and Ursula both desire their own form of happiness and success, Ariel’s desire and the lengths she’ll go to acquire love represents a stereotypical society of powerless women who depend on men for their survival. As opposed to Ursula, who seeks revenge and the crown of Triton but ultimately fails; her failure demonstrates the power of men that will always dominate over women in the end, but her attempt represents the ambitious women out there that want more than just love.
I believe this is what literature has offered women for centuries: a space of liberty, where they can rid themselves of the veil forced upon them as wives, mothers, and daughters; a place where they are boundless, their stories immortalized, and their knowledge passed on from generation to generation. The writings of political and feminist theorists, such as Iris Marion Young, has framed my focus on women’s literature. In “Throwing like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment Motility and Spatiality”, Young argues that “the female person who enacts the existence of women in patriarchal society must live a contradiction: as human she is a free subject who participates in transcendence, but her situation as a woman denies her that subjectivity and transcendence.” The notion that women’s existence in patriarchal society is marked by a tension between immanence and transcendence is fundamental to my work as it highlights, in the words of Young, that women constitute “the inessential correlate to man … [being] both culturally and socially denied by the subjectivity, autonomy, and creativity which are definitive of being human and which in patriarchal society are accorded
In “Sow”, the poem shows multiple of Plath’s constant worries such as a figure of maternal burden “hedged by a litter of feat-foot ninnies” as well as a symbol of sexual appetite who thinks of “Boar: fabulous enough to straddle” her. In “Tulips”, she takes a huge risk describing the moment of her dissatisfaction with motherhood. “The Applicant” was written to highlight how marriage is often romantic as well as economic. The character in “Ariel” shows both captivity and escape. The poem from “Ariel”, “Nick and the Candlestick”, shows a less observed side of Sylvia; in this poem, motherhood is not impediment, but wonderful.
In Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Mirror, the protagonists, Esther Greenwood and Mirror’s unnamed narrator, search for an escape from reality due to their current unfulfilled lives. Esther becomes alienated by American society in the materialistic 1950s, whilst the woman in Mirror reveals her fear of old age, which haunts her every time she looks within the mirror. Sylvia Plath lived in an era where the image of women “[that] perpetuated throughout the 1950s was one of inequality” (Young, 10). Exaggerated sexism permeated as a result of the masculine fear of lack of authority; this fear was planted in World War II. World War II was a catalyst for women progression: women had involved themselves in the workforce as a result of the male drafting.
This encounter brings about a theme of a girl turning into a woman and being objectified by her body and beauty. This shows a darker side of a rite of passage that a girl who is turning into a woman confronts by having to conform to the ideology of how she must appear and standards she has when it comes to her beauty. Likewise, the promotion of being stuck under the sea to being able to go up to the surface is analogous to her becoming a woman and entering adulthood and moving up a “level” in
Sylvia Plath and Patricia Lockwood both deal with issues of gender and sexuality in their work. Each poet strongly believes in the equal opportunity of both sexes. Plath uses excessive gender roles in her poems due to the death of her father and her painful divorce from her husband. Plath disagrees with the common idea of womanhood to be strictly reproduction and gratification. She views herself and all other women as entities of individual people.
Poetry lives in spaces where ordinary language cannot do the work, it finds a way to survive through intros in rap songs, commercials or ads, and monologues in movies. Poetry depicts the emotions nobody dares to talk about in public and shows how much a situations can impact you. These events create emotions into art. Sylvia Plath’s story and motive to write poems begins around the same time her father passes, an event that will impact her poetry deeply. A little after Plath’s eighth birthday her father dies from a case of diabetes that he ignores to treat. Plath published one of her first poems at the early age of eight in the children’s section of the Boston Herald. Later, in 1950, she is accepted by Smith College, where she meets an
Sylvia Plath’s poem “Mirror” deals with women’s preoccupation about aging and their concern towards their looks. Plath uses powerful imagery throughout the poem to relate to the theme of “All is Vanity”1 denouncing the superficiality of women, making a social critique of women’s illogical attraction to mirrors and their own image. Proper of Plath’s confessional poetry, she portrays her own anxieties about aging from a global feminine perspective. In this essay I am going to analyze why Plath, being a woman, represents this social group as being shallow and susceptible.
The 1900's were very difficult time for many groups of people. The topic of racial discrimination and equality was a very popular and discuss issue. Also, women were trying to overcome the burden of sexual discrimination. Many people felt trapped and discriminated against like they didn't belong. Writing and poetry was often one way they expressed themselves and showed how they were feeling. The poems, "Mirror", "Courage", "The Explorer", and "Frederick Douglas", were among the many poems of this time. They voice many people and their opinions on some of these harder dilemmas. There are messages in each of these 4 four poems.
This poem was conducted during the beginning of Sylvia Plath’s career; previous to when her writing makes a transition into becoming further complex in its theme, specifically through her re-occurring utilization of the literary techniques of allusions and enjambments. As a result of the poem being written in 1956, Plath specifically comments on the issues that women encountered with inequality when compared to the roles of men in marriage. It is, therefore, fundamental in recognizing that Plath had perceived marriage in a cynical behaviour, and had begun to regard it as a metaphorical ‘trap’ that women were subjected to, through the pressure of conformity that was ultimately exerted on them by society’s ideals. Therefore, through the establishment of Plath’s perception of marriage, she demonstrates through Two Daughters of Persephone two contrasting women that lead opposing roles in society, but ironically, both conclude life in similar fates as a result of both living very narrow existences.
Being a confessional poet, Plath exhibits individuality through her defiance of her assigned passivity and her rejection of society’s attempt to collectively identify women. She metaphorically kills not “one man” but “two” in ‘Daddy’, illustrating her active psychological impact upon other men; the inexplicit nature of the noun “man” offering the generalised reading that she reigns over the entire male sex, achieving an abstract female sovereignty. Considering that her confrontation of inequality mirrors the radical feminists who ‘tend to be interested in female privilege rather than equality’ [Diane Davis], Plath reveals sentiments of self-importance which indicate that she felt intellectually unthreatened by the patriarchy’s physical power. Furthermore, Plath’s focus upon the personal pronouns “I” and “my” alongside her dismissal of her assumed maternal instinct suggest that she was unaltered by her domestication. Instead, Plath recognised female qualities which were yet to be accepted in her contemporary