“A snapshot in time: Feministic views in the sixties”, in Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Dorothy Livesay’s “The Unquiet Bed” Throughout the world, there are rudimentary gender characteristics, both physical and psychological, that differentiate a man from a woman. However, some people do not associate themselves with these stereotypical characteristics. Notwithstanding the amount of progress achieved in the past few decades, gender stereotypes are still solemn. Qualities like strength, intellect and sexual deviance are usually associated with men, while qualities like irrational, emotional and insecure are more relevant to women. In Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Dorothy Livesay’s “The Unquiet Bed”, each poet captures the expression of female …show more content…
The title “The Unquiet Bed” is an oxymoron for the contradictory use of a bed. By reading the title, one can assume that sexuality is one of the themes of the poem; it implies that the bed is not only used for sleeping. Livesay uses soft words such as “move over love” (14), making the tone of the poem calm and humble. The poem is short, has short lines and has absolutely no punctuation. The short lines suggest that Livesay is trying to get her point across without interruption. The fact that there is not any punctuation, not even a period at the end of the poem, implies that male dominance is a continuing issue. The use of “I” and “you” make the poem more personal; the speaker is speaking directly to her partner. In the opening stanza, the speaker states that she is “not just bones / and crockery” (3-4). This metaphor means that she is not an object, “bones” meaning that she is not only used for sex, and “crockery” meaning that she is not the stereotypical woman who belongs in the kitchen. The speaker does not want to be the stereotypical couple where the man is the superior gender in the relationship. At that time, although it was acceptable for men to enjoy sex, the idea of a woman behaving the same way disturbed many. Robinson, King and Balwick (1972) state that “Comparing data bases upon 1965 and 1970 samples, …show more content…
It was a time where women fought for their rights and began to change the way men treated them as a gender. Before that time, a woman was expected to marry young, have kids, commit her life to homemaking and obey to her husband’s commands. The 1960’s are where women finally began to speak their minds and stand up for their rights. Although the issues talked about in the two poems are completely different, they both give out the same message. Plath and Livesay are both expressing different issues about the equality of the sexes in a relationship from a different perspective. Plath is much more aggressive when approaching the subject, while Livesay is much more subtle. Both authors lived completely different lives so their opinions on the same theme come out differently, with varying degrees of aggressiveness. Plath expresses her thoughts on female identity with a lot more anger because she is talking from her personal experiences. Plath has a lot more to say compared to Livesay because lived a hard life from the moment her father died until the day she committed suicide. Plath’s anger towards men made her negative and aggressive feelings reflect in her poem. At the moment Plath wrote this poem, she was separated from her husband because of an affair, which
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental Feminism and Literature 's Ancestral House: Another Look At 'The Yellow Wallpaper '." Women 's Studies 12.2 (1986): 113. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.
It tends to be the trend for women who have had traumatic childhoods to be attracted to men who epitomize their emptiness felt as children. Women who have had unaffectionate or absent fathers, adulterous husbands or boyfriends, or relatives who molested them seem to become involved in relationships with men who, instead of being the opposite of the “monsters” in their lives, are the exact replicas of these ugly men. Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy” is a perfect example of this unfortunate trend. In this poem, she speaks directly to her dead father and her husband who has been cheating on her, as the poem so indicates.
Two of the most popular poets of the 19th and 20th centuries are Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath, respectively. These women were born nearly one hundred years apart, but their writing is strikingly similar, especially through the use of the speaker. In fact, in Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy”, she writes about her father and compares him to domineering figures, such as Adolf Hitler, a teacher, and a vampire; and in Emily Dickinson’s poem “She dealt her pretty words like blades—“, she talks about bullies and how they affect a person’s life—another domineering figure. Despite being born in different centuries, Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath are parallel in a multitude of ways, such as their choice in story, their choice for themes, and their choice of and as a narrator.
Plath’s difficulties with narrative prose contrasts between her novelistic dreams and her character. Plath’s passion for classic novelists and her own talent made her realize the fitting narrative prose were densely constructed (Hughes 1). Plath’s poetry goes through constant changes (Smith 2). The bee was a motif that was often used (Smith 3).Jerome Mazzaro considers Plath’s achievements in The Bell Jar to be less gendered. Mazzaro also believes Plath’s novel is a statement of fascination of the midcentury (“The Importance…” 2). Marilyn Yalom wrote in Maternity, Morality, and the Literature of Madness that Plath’s novel about her breakdown and her recovery, The Bell Jar, is a pre-feminist disclosure of the effects of the sexist culture. Yalom’s critical view increased from the feminist and psychoanalytic critic of the 1980s (“The Importance…” 1). Plath’s lyricism ranges from simple but effective to a Hopkinsian ode for her beloved (Magill 2223). Her best ability was turning everyday experiences into diary entries (Magill 2225). Plath’s poems from Ariel reflect her fury and sullenness toward life (Draper 2734).
The nineteen fifties and sixties were a troubling time for Americans. Although the nation was prospering, a constant threat was hanging over the heads of every citizen. Oppressed classes found that they had more to fear than active members of society. Not only did they live in fear of attacks from another nation, but also attacks from fellow citizens of the United States. Women in America were subject to objectification from the men with whom they lived, and in turn began to question the purpose of existence. Neo-romanticism became a popular ideology once again, leading women to yearn for a life outside of the ones that they were living. The late fifties and early sixties reintroduced several radical ideologies such as: feminism, existentialism, and romanticism, all of which proved fatal for Sylvia Plath.
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental Feminism and Literature's Ancestral House: Another Look at 'The Yellow Wallpaper.'" Women's Studies 12:2 (1986): 113-128.
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental Feminism and Literature's Ancestral House: Another Look at 'The Yellow Wallpaper'" Women's Studies. 12 (1986): 113-128.
Plath’s work is valuable for its ability to reach today’s reader, because of its concern with the real problems of our culture. In this age of gender conflicts, broken families, and economic inequities, Plath’s forthright language speaks loudly about the anger of being both betrayed and powerless. She was hailed as literary symbol of the women’s rights movement and a feminist writer of great significance. Sylvia Plath began by creating art that imitated life, but ended when life imitated art.
Often times we look through people and not truly at them. Sylvia Plath was one person who was looked through a lot when she desperately wanted to be noticed. As a striving poet and author in a time period where women were not expected to perform such tasks Sylvia struggled to keep it all together. Although she had her high points, like we all do, it remains apparent that she was battling with a deep inner conflict. Sylvia brings her emotional burden to life in her first novel The Bell Jar. Feminism, communism and a suicide attempt are all intertwined in this biography. The life of a not only a tortured poet but a struggling mother is obvious throughout her work. In order to grasp the lasting impression of Sylvia Plath, we have to understand where she comes from, how the critics and the people of her time viewed her, and the impact she left for the rest us.
When Sylvia Plath was told her father died at the tender age of nine, she bitterly said, “I’ll never speak to God again.” In her brief but indispensable writing career, Plath distinguished herself in the poetical realm with her body of work that includes but is not limited to poems, short stories, and one semi-autobiographical novel. Her legacy lives on through her dark themes laden with powerful images such as the moon and skulls, while a father-type figure acts as a significant force either as a central antagonistic power or an influential shadow looming in the background. Brooding thoughts and despondent emotion overcome the reader when faced with one of Plath’s numerous works such as “Daddy,” “The Colossus,” and “Lady Lazarus.” Sometimes straightforward in understanding, Plath’s works contain intermittently placed, unique choices in diction like “mule bray, pig-grunt” throughout her works. On February 11, 1963, Plath was found with her head placed in her kitchen oven (death by carbon monoxide), yet she continues to resonate with people to this day; is it because we are able to relate to her melancholy and heartache? Or because of our sickening-interest in her suicide and the events that led to it? Maybe it is both. Because of her father’s death at a young age, Sylvia Plath’s poems underlies a theme regarding her suicidal demise and victimization at the hands of a patriarchal society, particularly from her husband, Ted Hughes, and late father, Otto Plath.
From headlines to cadavers, bell jars to mental illnesses, and a subdued matron to a rebellious young lady, this novel hosts the two overarching themes of alienation and constraints on women in the 1950s. Esther Greenwood separates herself from nearly all of society and simultaneously must overcome the strictures that are set upon her and hinder her from the future she aspires towards. Through extensive imagery, symbolism, and characterization Sylvia Plath delves into how people strive for perfection and acceptance through social standards and additionally how those that do not comply completely with them are alienated from the group of society, either by themselves or by the group.
There is no doubt that the literary written by men and women is different. One source of difference is the sex. A woman is born a woman in the same sense as a man is born a man. Certainly one source of difference is biological, by virtue of which we are male and female. “A woman´s writing is always femenine” says Virginia Woolf
Poetry is the wind for a trapped and wounded soul. A great example of a wounded soul is, Sylvia Plath. She was an immaculate poet, who expressed her personal troubles through writing. As Plath’s life smouldered into a heap of dust at the age of 30, her poetry grew and bloomed. In the years before her death, her most troubled period, Plath penned three of her most well-known poems, “Daddy”, “Lady Lazarus” and “Tulips”—all three illustrating the horrors of despair with strong, expressive literary devices. Plath, who committed suicide in 1963 at the age of 30, has been hailed ubiquitously as one of the most acclaimed and preeminent poets of the 21st century. Plath’s poetry was influenced by tragic events in her life and her prolonged battle against her deep depression and obsession with death. Plath’s personal issues made her the definition of a confessional poet. In the poems, “Daddy”, “Tulips”, and “Lady Lazarus”, Plath confesses her emotional and nervous breakdowns during her endless depression.
Confessional poetry of women poets of the then 1950s and 1960s opens a new vista for them to express their ‘self’ and to foreground their identity. These poets feel the need for self-affirmation because of their experience of marginalization in society. They found all the experiences are gendered in the 1950s and 1960s patriarchal society and so they also develop a gendered image of their ‘self’ in their confessional poetry. At the time when Sexton and Plath were children, the authoritarian figure within the nuclear family was the father and so he was the representative of society’s rule. Hence, the delineation of the Electra complex in their confessional poetry is one of the approaches of scratching their gendered ‘self’ because through the Electra complex the poets inscribe the female sexuality into the text. So, “with their autobiographical works, they write themselves into the canon and represent and deconstruct cultural images and linguistic codes of ‘woman’ and suggest alternative modes of self and identity” (Carmen
Reveals and proves how free spirited and understanding she was. It conveys that people in your life can be influential, but only to a certain extent; then, it is up to the individual, to find the beauty and love in your life, and to find that in another human being is beautiful. Plath’s life was everything but easy. Plath conveys a myriad of themes in her poems from deaths to upbeat random ideas, which she demonstrates in her poems “Daddy,” “Fever 103,” and “Fiesta Melons.”