Analysis of gender roles and irony in Sylvia Plath's "The Applicant

Plath

Gender Roles According to Plath's the Applicant

The assignment of gender roles is one of the most determinant and irresistible forces in our society. Powerful constructs persist from one generation to the next to indoctrinate us with the duties culturally befitting man and woman. And in a distinctly patriarchal society, these constructs also carry considerable emotional hazard to the feminine experience. So is this described in Sylvia Plath's "The Applicant." The poem, included in Plath's 2nd poetry collection, Ariel, was released in 1965. That Plath committed suicide two years before its released suggests that the despair contained here within was a permeating force in her life.

Indeed, 'The Applicant' is consumed with a numb kind of melancholy that Plath seems to assert comes from a lifetime of objectification and obsequiousness to the will of man. In something that resembles a job interview, the opening of Plath's poem describes the experience of being judged, scrutinized and scanned for marks of imperfection. This suggests that the experience of courtship for women is not simply absent of romance but also of free will. Women are passively selected rather than directly engaged in a process of determining compatibility. And ultimately, she suggests, those who aren't made into charity cases by horrible deformities are otherwise simply to be settled upon by carnivorous men.

And once this is done, Plath describes a life of servile isolation. Worse still, Plath seems to assert, is the notion that a woman is presented with this opportunity at servility as though it is her best chance at happiness. Plath remarks, "Open your hand. / Empty? Empty. Here is a hand / To fill it and willing / To bring teacups and roll away headaches / and do whatever you tell it / Will you marry it?."

Here, Plath makes promises to man and woman a like. She is promised a hand to hold and in exchange, is given protection from the harsh realities of the world. The man she marries will be "waterproof, shatterproof, proof / Against fire and bombs through the roof." And to man is promised a guarantee of loyalty and obedience, a wife to satisfy his sexual urges, his superficial wants and his need to be the king of his own small estate. Interestingly, as much as this may at first appear a work aimed at deconstructing the oppression of the female, it is equally concerned with the notion of gender roles on a more general level. The characterization of male is not itself critical or even explicitly aimed at patriarchy. Instead, objectification extends to both genders and comes from the gender role constructs underlying the continuity of a patriarchal society.

For Plath, this set of constructs is dehumanizing to both sexes. She demonstrates as much by employing the 'it' pronoun any place where he or she might traditionally be used. To Plath, the impact of gender constructs has the effect not just of imposing the power dynamics discussed here throughout but also of diminishing the importance of human compatibility or love in the courtship process. As Plath queries, "I notice you are stark naked. / How about this suit -- / Black and stiff, but not a bad fit. / Will you marry it?"