The Applicant by Sylvia Plath reveals the characteristics that are longed by men through personification and other poetic devices. The poem suggests that women need to be visibly pleasing and all around perfect in order to please and benefit men. Women have always been objectified in society, and this poem portrays that by substituting the word “woman” for “it”. As if a women does not even get to have a respectable label and instead is placed among objects. Bit by bit, parts of the poem represents evidence for this theory. Starting with the title, “The Applicant” gives the idea that one would be literally applying for something. metaphorically, I interpreted “The Applicant” as a man “applying” to society for a wife, and the entire poem seemed …show more content…
It is guaranteed To thumb shut your eyes at the end And dissolve of sorrow.” ” and it seems to be metaphorically saying that women are there for men to marry and they will be there to mourn their husband’s deaths. Women are supposed to be there for their men all the time, even after death. To add to this thought, line four in the fourth stanza to the last line in the fifth stanza says, “I notice you are stark naked. How about this suit-- Black and stiff, but not a bad fir. Will you marry it? It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof Against fire and bombs through the roof. Believe me, they’ll bury you in it.” In this section, the speaker offers the applicant a suit, which i’m assuming adds on to the marriage topic. Metaphorically saying that a man is naked until marriage and the suit represents the marriage. The speaker seems to be selling the idea of marriage as if it 's a cell phone, saying that it is waterproof, shatterproof, etc, even the line “Believe me, they’ll bury you in it” seems like it 's a lifetime …show more content…
It is as though the speaker is putting in his last words to sell away this ‘woman’. “It works, there is nothing wrong with it. You have a hole, it’s a poultice. You have an eye, it’s an image. My boy, it’s your last resort. Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.” The repetition at the end of this stanza gives the effect that the phrase is important and possibly meant for the reader to understand that the speaker is in fact talking about a woman and not an object he/she is trying to sell, because humans tend to marry humans not objects. “You have a hole, it’s a poultice. You have an eye, it’s an image” represents the expectations of married women, and how they are there to serve their husbands. Here we have finally concluded that the speaker is for sure talking to a male, and usually men are married to a woman. This assumption is clarified by giving the “it” womanly characteristics like, “stop crying”, saying that it knows how to cook and sew and talks a lot and asks in the beginning about having rubber breasts. Although the speaker still refers to what we assume as a woman, as an “it”, metaphorically objectifying women as not even
The chaos and destruction that the Nazi’s are causing are not changing the lives of only Jews, but also the lives of citizens in other countries. Between Night by Elie Wiesel and The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom, comradeship, faith, strength, and people of visions are crucial to the survival of principle characters. Ironically, in both stories there is a foreseen future, that both seemed to be ignored.
...saying that marriage is a gamble, and that women risk failure by becoming married. Laux speaks to the women with the idyllic views of matrimony and she may be trying to issue a warning to them, or to teach them a lesson about how she feels. This is important to the narrator especially as she repeats the word “again” in the question she asks at the end of the poem. The juxtaposition of the free bird to the housewife constricted to a cluttered room is an important image and helps the reader see the differences between the two. Laux’s metaphor for the female condition is made clear by the end of the poem and is an attempt to make the reader question what the narrator has that women all over the world are so eager to partake in.
After her diagnosis of chronic kidney failure in 2004, psychiatrist Sally Satel lingered in the uncertainty of transplant lists for an entire year, until she finally fell into luck, and received her long-awaited kidney. “Death’s Waiting List”, published on the 5th of May 2006, was the aftermath of Satel’s dreadful experience. The article presents a crucial argument against the current transplant list systems and offers alternative solutions that may or may not be of practicality and reason. Satel’s text handles such a topic at a time where organ availability has never been more demanded, due to the continuous deterioration of the public health. With novel epidemics surfacing everyday, endless carcinogens closing in on our everyday lives, leaving no organ uninflected, and to that, many are suffering, and many more are in desperate request for a new organ, for a renewed chance. Overall, “Death’s Waiting List” follows a slightly bias line of reasoning, with several underlying presumptions that are not necessarily well substantiated.
The submission of women is demonstrated in the text through the symbolic colors of the couple’s bedroom. Indeed, as the young woman’s husband is asleep, the wife remains wide-awake, trying her best to provide the man with comfort, while enjoying her newlywed life. As she opens her eyes to contemplate “the blue of the brand-new curtains, instead of the apricot-pink through which the first light of day [filters] into the room where she [has]
and make fun of black elders. And would talk to them any kind of way.
In the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, the author highlights the scientific advances of HeLa cells, as well as the personal setbacks of Henrietta Lacks’ family. HeLa is a commonly used cell line in laboratories worldwide and is so often referred to as “the cell line that changed modern science”. This line of immortal cells has helped advance science in ways beyond compare. HeLa has allowed cell testing, cell cloning, and the discovery of various vaccines, including the HPV vaccine. While HeLa has done wonders in the medical field, it has caused unrepairable damage among the Lacks family.
She tells the girl to “walk like a lady” (320), “hem a dress when you see the hem coming down”, and “behave in front of boys you don’t know very well” (321), so as not to “become the slut you are so bent on becoming” (320). The repetition of the word “slut” and the multitude of rules that must be obeyed so as not to be perceived as such, indicates that the suppression of sexual desire is a particularly important aspect of being a proper woman in a patriarchal society. The young girl in this poem must deny her sexual desires, a quality intrinsic to human nature, or she will be reprimanded for being a loose woman. These restrictions do not allow her to experience the freedom that her male counterparts
Throughout life graduation, or the advancement to the next distinct level of growth, is sometimes acknowledged with the pomp and circumstance of the grand commencement ceremony, but many times the graduation is as whisper soft and natural as taking a breath. In the moving autobiographical essay, "The Graduation," Maya Angelou effectively applies three rhetorical strategies - an expressive voice, illustrative comparison and contrast, and flowing sentences bursting with vivid simile and delightful imagery - to examine the personal growth of humans caught in the adversity of racial discrimination.
The time that began the poem is completely shattered and served as a jolt of reality to the reader. Yet that raises a pertinent question: why is, in line 4, she is weaving a garland for “your living head”? In the 1930s, who would have perpetrated violent acts against women in the name of sexual gratification yet still hold expectations that women take care of them? By making men in general the placeholder for “you” in the poem, it creates a much stronger and universal statement about the sexual inequality women faced. She relates to women who have had “a god for [a] guest” yet it seems ironic because she is criticising the way these women have been treated (10). It could be argued, instead, that it is not that she sees men as gods, but that is the way they see themselves. Zeus was a god who ruled Olympus and felt entitled to any woman he wanted, immortal or otherwise. He encapsulates the societal mindset that men were dominant and women were there to benefit them. In all the allusions to the Greek myths, Zeus disguises himself in order to trick the women of his desires. The entitlement men felt towards women and their bodies was easily guised as the “social norm”. Embracing a wider meaning to “you” than just as a reference to a single person adds complexity to the poem; it creates a sense of universality. Not all women can identify with an act of violence
...sed society with religious overtones throughout the poem, as though religion and God are placing pressure on her. The is a very deep poem that can be taken in may ways depending on the readers stature yet one thing is certain; this poem speaks on Woman’s Identity.
Sylvia Plaths poem, Sow, depicts a beast of mythic proportions through various images, comparisons, and specific word choices. By presenting the sow from both the point of view of its owner, neighbor, and of the speaker, Plath paints a vivid picture of farmyard decadence that the reader can relate to.
"Ariel" is the title poem from Sylvia Plath's controversial collection of poetry written during the last few months of her life in 1963. The traditional gender roles of 1960s America promoted a double-standard and wrongly imposed upon women the idea of a "Happy Housewife Heroine" who cherished "the receptivity and passivity implicit in (her) nature" and was "devoted to (her) own beauty and (her) ability to bear and nurture children" (Friedan, 59). Plath comments on the devastating effects of social convention on individuality, but she realizes that both sexes are affected by society's oppression of its members. She contemplates this theme throughout Ariel, especially in the "The Applicant," a critique of the emptiness of the stereotypical roles of men and women at the time.
“Spinster” by Sylvia Plath is a poem that consists of a persona, who in other words serves as a “second self” for the author and conveys her innermost feelings. The poem was written in 1956, the same year as Plath’s marriage to Ted Hughes, who was also a poet. The title suggests that the persona is one who is not fond of marriage and the normal rituals of courtship as a spinster is an unmarried woman, typically an older woman who is beyond the usual age of marriage and may never marry. The persona of the poem is a woman who dislikes disorder and chaos and finds relationships to be as unpredictable as the season of spring, in which there is no sense of uniformity. In this poem, Plath not only uses a persona to disclose her feelings, but also juxtaposes the seasons and their order (or lack thereof) and relates them to the order that comes with solitude and the disorder that is attributed with relationships. She accomplishes this through her use of formal diction, which ties into both the meticulous structure and develops the visual imagery.
Plath presents the submissive view of the women of the 1950s with lines like, “Here is a hand to fill it and willing to bring teacups and roll away headaches and do whatever you tell it.” With this sentence, Plath demonstrates that women were pressured by society to be no more than a housewife who cares to their husband’s every whim. This is also shown by the following line. ‘A living doll, everywhere you look. It can sew, it can cook, It can talk, talk, talk.” This line also demonstrates the use of “it” when referring to the woman who the applicant is being offered. This makes the reader think of the woman as an object instead of a person which reinforces the idea that women at the time were simply there to serve their
Marriage is ‘Juno’s crown,’ the manifestation of heavenly authority. Without marriage, heaven seems less empowered. This point is restated in the second line, where we discover how the ‘bond of board and bed’ empowers those who marry with divine blessing. Indeed, we discover that marriage is ubiquitous, as Hymen ‘peoples every town.’ This line carries a double meaning, as it also signifies how reproduction is divinely sanctioned only under the auspices of marriage. Such a spiritually important bond is thus appropriately considered a sacrament – hence ‘High wedlock then be honorèd.’ The final couplet then takes a step beyond the context of the Christian world, and claims that marriage is a universally recognized good. It is honored and renown throughout ‘every town.’ Even within the pagan tradition, marriage merits divine representation, for its pervasive ability to unite people spiritually and strengthen the community politically. At the conclusion of As You Like It, Hymen’s presence seems to give spiritual significance to the frivolity and coquettishness that has set the tone of the rest of the story. This mystical, pagan figure simultaneously teaches the gravity and the joy that is inherent in the act of loving, and why marriage is its most pure and universal