Toné Nanna
Ruotolo
LA II H
15 March 2017
Dehumanization of Women In “The Applicant”
Of all the feminist writers of the 20th and 21st century, Sylvia Plath is one whose influence in the writing community has remained strong even 50 years after her tragic death. While an astoundingly accomplished woman for the time period, graduating summa cum laude from Smith College, and winning the Fulbright Scholarship to attend Newnham College of Cambridge, Plath still never fully believed in her talent. Her struggle with depression and suicidal tendencies, her crumbling marriage to cheating husband Ted Hughes, and her insecurities about her womanhood in a time where all women had to be perfect were beautifully translated into over 121 poems and her best selling novel The Bell Jar. These insecurities and problems are what led to her third and final suicide attempt, which resulted in her death on February 11th 1963. Her radical disinterest in traditional domestic tasks standardized for women, and anger over gender stereotypes that held her back in her own marriage can be seen in poems such as “The Applicant.” Sylvia Plath demonstrates the dehumanization of women in society through her poem “The Applicant” by exhibiting how gender stereotypes in marriage can contribute to a woman’s objectification.
In “The Applicant,” Sylvia Plath goes to great lengths to show the negative way society treats women by using objects to represent them. By only referring to the idea of a woman and never using any outstanding identifiers to represent their womanhood, she is characterizing her feelings about the treatment she receives in her own marriage. When she says “Here is a hand / To fill it and willing / To bring teacups and roll away headaches / And do whatever you tell it.” (Sylvia 10-13) she uses the word hand instead of describing the full body of a woman as a synecdoche. In the poem, she also uses the word “it” when referring to the woman, which is a major illustration of how she feels about a woman’s dehumanization in a marriage. By saying “Will you marry it?” (Plath 14), and “It can sew, it can cook, / It can talk, talk, talk.” (Plath 34-35), Plath is signifying how a female’s identity is lost. By losing any gender pronouns and being referred to as an “it”, the woman is no longer a person, but rather an object. Plath’s ability to manipulate words using figurative language to express her themes, and “The mixture of comedic self-deprecation and forceful anger…”(Wagner-Martin), are why her works are so popular and well received as an “…early voice of the women’s movement…” (Wagner-Martin).
Gender stereotypes greatly contribute to a woman’s dehumanization, specifically those about married women. Once married, women are expected to have children, stay at home while their husbands work, be submissive, and always remain the lesser being in the relationship. This places women in a confining situation within their own marriage, as it was for Plath in hers. In “The Applicant” Plath portrays these stereotypes with the comparison of the woman to the gifts that are given on anniversaries, “Naked as paper to start / But in twenty-five years she’ll be silver, In fifty, gold / A living doll, everywhere you look.” (Plath 30-33). Women come into marriages new, but as the years progress they become more valuable, like silver and gold does, until they are a doll that can be manipulated into doing whatever a man wants. When she says, “Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.” (Plath 28), it may sound affectionate due to her use of the word sweetie, but that stanza is actually demonstrating how demeaning a marriage can be. The wife is diminished down to a child who has to be invited and ordered out of the closet she has been placed in. Not only are there constricting stereotypes involved in marriage, but there are also different societal expectations for wives compared to their husbands. When Plath says “It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof / Against fire and bombs through the roof.” (23-24) it shows how the woman or “it” is strong, and able to withstand all problems, which is often an expectation for married women. For the men, however, the expectations for being married are very different. Unlike women who are expected to get married, men have more time to follow other pursuits without the pressure of getting married being on their backs constantly. However, sometimes men enter marriages not fully committed as shown in “The Applicant” when the author states, “My boy, it’s your last resort.” (Plath 23).These expectations and stereotypes in marriage can devalue and objectify women, as well as contribute to their degradation.
While marriages have stereotypes and expectations built into them, society has other categories for both men and women. These stereotypes are implemented from the moment a baby’s gender is determined. Upon finding out that a baby is a girl, people will instinctually have a clichéd idea of what the child should be. This importance of differentiating between masculinity and femininity is stressed from a very young age, and can be detrimental to a person’s self identity, with constant strain of following expectations being placed on them. In “The Applicant” when Sylvia Plath writes “Stop crying.” (Plath 8), she is indicating the ideal of being hard and emotionless, as crying is seen as feminine in society’s eyes. This can also be seen when Plath writes “How about this suit / … / Believe me, they’ll bury you in it.” (Plath 20,25). The suit, a typical article of clothing for men, is a common representation of masculinity and the fact that “they’ll get buried in it” shows that the masculinity will follow them to the grave. Along with the persistent hyper masculinity that will follow a man to the grave, his wife’s unwavering dedication towards tending to her husband , which is demonstrated in “To thumb shut your eyes at the end / And dissolve of sorrow.” (Plath 16-17), will as well. The feminine ideal of being girly, submissive, and the perfect lady is something Sylvia Plath simultaneously embraced and rebelled against. Striving to be perfect, but never quite getting it, was a major player in her depression. In her marriage to poet Ted Hughes, her writings were never give as much importance as her husband’s work. Her gender automatically made her less important, less of a human.
Sylvia Plath wrote “The Applicant” in order to convey her message on how dehumanizing gender stereotypes objectify women in their marriages. Having experienced firsthand the negative effects that inequality to the opposite sex can have on a woman’s identity, confidence, and selfhood, she was able to accurately express her anger over these differences, and translate them into “The Applicant”. Societal expectations and stress on the importance of differences between a man and a woman often lead to female objectification. Because women have been stereotyped into being thought of as weaker, and less important than men, feelings of being less than a human can follow. Through “The Applicant” Sylvia Plath tried and was successful at expressing these feelings on what marriage and society can do to a woman when oppressing gender stereotypes lead to their dehumanization.
Works Cited
“Sylvia Plath.” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d.<https://www.poetryfoundation.org/ poems-and-poets/poets/detail/sylvia-plath>. Accessed 20 Feb. 2017.
Wagner-Martin, Lind, and Anne Stevenson. “Two Views on Sylvia Plath’s Life and Career.” Two Views on Sylvia Plath’s Life and Career. N.p., n.d.<http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/ poets/m_r/plath/twoviews.htm>. Accessed 20 Feb. 2017.
Plath, Sylvia, and Ted Hughes. The Collected Poems. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. Print.
Works Consulted
“Suicide in Sylvia Plath’s Poetry.” Suicide in Sylvia Plath’s Poetry, University of Valencia , 2007, mural.uv.es/bermacar/4thindiv.htm. Accessed 2 Mar. 2017.
“Women’s Roles in the 1950s.” American Decades, edited by Judith S. Baughman, et al., vol. 6: 1950-1959, Gale, 2001, pp. 278-280. U.S. History in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/ doc/CX3468301967/UHIC?u=newh97416&xid=84a77f08. Accessed 16 Feb. 2017.
Alvarez, A. “Sylvia Plath.” Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Carolyn Riley and Barbara Harte, vol. 2, Gale, 1974. Contemporary Literary Criticism Online, go.galegroup.com/ps/ i.d p=LCO&sw=w&u=jame34605&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CEZGJKO372911596&it=r. Accessed 10 Feb. 2017. Originally published in in Review, no. 9, Oct. 1963, pp. 20-26.
Annas, Pamela J. “The Self in the World: The Social Context of Sylvia Plath’s Late Poems.” Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Jeffrey W. Hunter and Deborah A. Schmitt, vol. 111, Gale, 1999. Contemporary Literary Criticism Online, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=LCO&sw=w&u=jame34605&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CVTQTJJ663999723&it=r. Accessed 16 Feb. 2017. Originally published in Women’s Studies, vol. 7, no. 1-2, 1980, pp. 171-183.f
Cooper, Brian. “Sylvia Plath and the Depression Continuum.” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, The Royal Society of Medicine, June 2003, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ articles/PMC539515/. Accessed 3 Mar. 2017.
Staff, NPR. “Sylvia Plath’s Husband, Ted Hughes, Lived A Life Of Poetry And Tragedy.” NPR, NPR, 10 Oct. 2015, www.npr.org/2015/10/10/447156705/sylvia-plaths-husband-ted- hughes-lived-a-life-of-poetry-and-tragedy. Accessed 3 Mar. 2017.