As instructed to explore, this paper analyses the way Sylvia Plath’s poems illustrate gender relations and how the structure of gender based on hierarchy and inequality becomes an obstacle to form positive relationships amongst individuals. To begin, Sylvia Plath was one of the most admired poets of the 20th century. Her work originated after drowning in grief, guilt and anger after her father’s death. As her negative insecurities remained lingering around, Plath’s poetry began to develop in a more autobiographical and private way. Within the many poems that have been analyzed, the standards of love and intimacy were found to be driven away due to gender inequality. Thus, Plath’s poetry introduces sexuality as a focal device in the security of male dominance and female accommodation. Although insight on interpersonal relations cannot avoid the sexual viewpoints that are grinding away in building individuals’ personalities, this serves as a reality that makes the relations among people significantly more troublesome.
With sexuality consistently appearing as the main focus throughout Plath’s poems, it is intended to serve as an oppressive manifestation of social demands (Balbi 2). In other words, Plath’s definition of sexuality applies to those who try to express their individuality but fail to do so. For example, within Sylvia Plath’s poem, “Lesbos,” both men and women attempt to duplicate the models of sexual conduct they find in films. Through this view of mimicry, the reworking of sexual generalizations become an important tool for criticizing manners by which sexuality is already characterized (Balbi 2). “Lesbos” is more than just a poem set up by Plath to make it seem as if she is writing to another girl. It suggests that they run away together, while giving insight to how helpless she feels being held down to her husband and having no way out. Thus, referring to the male dominance mentioned earlier. In addition, even though the poem emphasizes Plath’s attempt to withdraw from her marriage, she acknowledges that even she cannot avoid being the victim of sexual oppression (Balbi 2).
Males and the reoccurring pain they inflict on women continue to be the underlying message in Plath’s poems. Poems such as, “Virgin in a Tree” and “Fever 103 Degrees,” Plath addresses the main reason for the increasing emotional gap between men and women (Balbi 3). Thus, referring to sexual violence. In this sense, her poems continue to uncover the adverse impacts gender hierarchy force on the relations between individuals. To explain more plainly, the conflicting problem that arises throughout, “Virgin in a Tree,” is that the virgin is characterized as the victim. Hence, the tree is referring to be an instrument of torture in which people were tied up and stretched, coincidently destroying the virgin’s identity and vitality (Balbi 4).
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As for the poem, “Fever 103 Degrees,” Plath was both sick and in pain over discovering her husband, Ted Hughes affair. She begins with a simple question, “Pure? What does it mean?” It is as if she had been having a conversation where the other individual mentioned the term. This term, however, is what triggers the rest of the poem. “Fever 103 Degrees” questions whether or not it is possible to get rid of stereotypes (Balbi 5). It is implied that the woman in this poem is uncertain about the oppressive views of her own sexuality, in which however, are identified with the manner in which male want builds the female personality (Balbi 5). As the poem continues, Plath projects two types of fires: the fires of hell and the fires of heaven. She claims that she is as pure as God, and therefore is rising, while the male figure in the poem is falling.
In continuation, one of the main problems found within “Fever 103 Degrees” is that it does not offer a way out for her speaker to escape oppressive identities. Hence, in Plath’s poems, sexuality has a tricky job: it is a wellspring of opportunity yet in addition of mistreatment (Balbi 6). Also within the poem, there is an attempt from Plath’s female speakers to expect a more prominent control of their own sexuality. Yet, males want to continue showing up through debilitating figures, while the females remain enslaved to a male-focused belief system (Balbi 6). Similarly, within the poem “The Jailer,” the female speakers know about being held in a capturing net of male sexual and ideological dominance. All things considered, they cannot escape from it. Such danger that overruns a male-commanded world is one reason why Plath’s female speakers accept an exceptionally negative view in connection to their own particular bodies (Balbi 6).
