Abstract

Searching for A Feminist Rights: A Postmodernist Analysis of Selected Poems by Sylvia Plath

Asst. Instr. Salman Hayder Jasim, Asst. Instr. Adnan Taher Rahma

Volume: 11 Issue: 3 2021

Abstract:

Sylvia Plath is one of those American poets who left their thumbprints on early postmodernist writings in America. Though, she lived a short life concluded by a horrible suicide, she produced a large body of poetry whose importance could have competed with later postmodernist poetry such as that written by Adrienne Rich, Maya Angelo and Harriet Mullen. The form and content of Plath's poetry demonstrated a new way of writing in comparison to the modernist poetry that preceded her time. When postmodernism meant the ultimate end of previous metanarratives and philosophies of form and content of writing and when postmodernism advocated selfgeneration over self-understanding, Plath appeared as a newly generated poet with a feminist message. Her appeal for a feminist position found support in the rapidly developing public sphere, which America witnessed during 1960s, as well as in the artistic and literary postmodernist sphere that accompanied it. To make an account for Sylvia Plath's achievement in this respect, the researcher divides the present paper into an introduction, three sections and a conclusion: The introduction of the paper sets the background of Sylvia Plath's literary rise and significance in her posthumous literary American scene. Section One discusses Plath's fight for a feminist role as it started early inside her family. The researcher selects a couple of poems to define the different sides of this internal struggle. Section Two moves out to the larger social scene which Plath choses to confirm her feminist demand on an external level. Here, she re-introduces the images of the 'bee' and the 'spider' to support her feminist stand. Section Three sheds light upon the theme of suicide and how it allures Plath as a means to define her feminist self. The Conclusion sums up the findings of the paper.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.37648/ijrssh.v11i03.012

Back Download

References

• Blair, Walter et al. American Literature: A Brief History. Brighton: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1674.
• Childs, Peter. The Twentieth Century in Poetry. London: Rutledge, 1999.
• Flax, Jane. Thinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Postmodernism in Contemporary West. Berkley: University of California Press, 1990.
• Greenberg, Arielle and Becca Klaver. 'Mad Girls' Love Songs: Two Women Poets- A Professor and Graduate Student- Discuss Sylvia Plath'. College Literature. 4 (2009): 179. eLibrary.web. 25 Sep. 2010. Available URL: http://elibrary. bigchalk.com.
• Hughes, Ted(ed.,). Collected Poems: Sylvia Plath. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, Inc., 1981.
• King, P.R. Nine Contemporary Poets: A Critical Introduction. London: Methuen, 1979.
• Levin, Dana. 'The Heroics of Style: A Study in Three Parts' American Poetry Review. 01 May. 2005: 20. eLibrary.web. 25 Sep. 2010. Available URL: http://elibrary. bigchalk.com.
• Rose, Jacqueline. The Haunting of Sylvia Plath. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1992.
• Smith, Stan. Inviolable Voice: History and Twentieth Century Poetry. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan. 1982.
• Walters, Margaret. Feminism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.