Good morning and welcome today’s session
of this NPTEL course titled introduction to
world literature, we are looking at another
piece of poem, this is by Sylvia Plath who
was an American poet, she lived in the late
modernist period that is from the 1930 to
1960, she had died very young, she had died
at the age of 30, she committed suicide, she
was also the wife of another fellow American
poet Ted Hughes, there are a lot of personal
details about her which would also help us
understand the kind of poetry that she had
been writing and ways in which the personal
and the political intersect in her idea of
feminism, in her ideas of self and in the
way she looked at, various institutions which
also act as fetters as far as women’s lives
were concerned.
So the applicant is one of her poems where
you find her at her best in terms of a humour
and this splitting contempt, so what is the
title remind us of, when we see the title
the applicant, it reminds us of context of
the job interview, it is about someone who
is applying for a position but gradually into
the poem you realise it has got to do nothing
with a job application, but this is about
marriage and this is about placing marriage
within the marketplace that had become by
the time that, this poem was getting written.
It says that this poem was written in October
1962 and it was first published in London
magazine that was in 1963 and this appeared
in a book titled Ariel in 1965 and this has
also become a very classic volume full of
powerful poetry by Sylvia Plath and there
was also a lot of controversy surrounding
its content and editorship because it was
also posthumous in nature, to get a sense
how this poem sounds and about the tone that
it sets, the setting of it right at the outset,
I will read out to you the first couple of
stanzas.
The applicant by Sylvia Plath, first are you
our sort of a person, do you wear a glass
eye, false teeth or a crutch, a brace or a
hook, rubber breast or a rubber crotch, stitches
to show something is missing, no, no, then
how can we give you a thing, stop crying,
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.
It is guaranteed, to thumb shut your eyes
at the end and dissolve of sorrow.
The poem gives away what it is about right
at the outset, it is about marriage and there
is a man who has been asked a certain questions
by the speaker and we also get to know that
one of the powerful things behind the title
of this poem that it is not really targeting
the man, it is not really targeting anyone
in person, it is targeting the system, it
is also showing us how certain things are
very deeply rooted, deeply ingrained that,
there is no way of getting out of it.
So this is a poem that explores the meaning
of marriage, the gender stereotypes and the
social pressures and how this poem becomes
extremely relevant and powerful is in the
way how it shows that even men are victims
of this stereotype, they are also under a
lot of social pressure to do what is required
of them and look at the series of questions
at the beginning about whether there is a,
there are artificial parts and it also draws
our attention to the kind of artificiality
and kind of many unnatural things which were
increasingly being used to boost the looks
of both men and women.
It draws out attention to the artificiality
which had set in by the 1960s and this poem
is written in the 1960s and what is the relevance
of 1960s is especially in the American and
European context, that is a time when the
second wave feminism had begun to set in,
so when we look at this poem from the context
of the second wave feminism, it becomes to
make more sense, that is also the time when
marriages as an institution began to be questioned
from various angles and this is also the time
that feminism as a movement, it began to move
from merely the activist, political, articulations
and it began to enter the households and in
America.
Particularly this is the time the baby boom,
the baby boom years are also happening, this
is right after the Second World War and there
is a lot of focus on the family, on making
babies literally and during this time, we
also know that it is time in the beat generation
happens there are a lot of things, a lot of
protests going on from the fields of culture,
music, writing, where there is a very active
way in which voices are being raised and projected
against this domination of institutions which
also by extension try to reinforce the stereotypes
of gender of institution related to marriage,
about conventions, about conforming to certain
things which are considered, more important
and perhaps articulating oneself tha perhaps
giving a sense of agency to oneself.
So this poem is also needs to be read in that
context and as mentioned earlier, it is the
system, it is the overall institution which
is being targeted over here and it is also
quite amazing the way in which she also brings
in the political element, the political angle
to get through such a lucidly written poem.
The subversion, which is taking place is in
a very, very sarcastic way and you need to
be there to actually get it, you need to know
the context, the political, social developments
of that period to really get what she is hinting
at, and as far as Sylvia Plath is concerned
she led a very nonconformist a very controversial
life, and she also believed that marriage
is an institution which may totally take away
the creativity that she was gifted with and
if we look at it from along the lines of the
revolution that Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia
woolf had set in the way in which the Virginia
woolf spoke about a room of one’s own the
way in which she was trying to carve out a
space for herself.
While being caught within the domestic chores
and the mundaneness of domesticity, we find
that Sylvia Plath is radically different from
that, while in woolf’s writings we find
her trying to carve out a space, we find in
Sylvia Plath, that she is trying to get out
of it completely, there is no way in which
she is trying to negotiate in a peaceful way,
she wants to get out of the system and she
wants to show that the system is completely
worthless and there is no point trying to
negotiate with it in a non-radical peaceful
way and the easier you get out of it, it gets
better.
So that is the kind of radical articulation
that second wave feminism also brings in it’s
not just about trying to refine and reform
the system by staying within it all, it is
also about getting out of it in radical ways
as far as it is possible and this poem tells
us about how ridiculous and how meaningless
and how completely irrational this system
is, the method, the process which goes on
while one is trying to get into the system
of marriage, while one is trying to fit oneself
within the system of marriage.
And hand obviously, here is a hand to fill
it and willing to bring a teacups in rollaway
headaches and do whatever you tell it, the
hand of course signifies there is a woman
whose hand is going to be given in marriage
to this man to whom the speaker is talking
to, to whom the speaker is addressing and
what is this hand supposed to do?
What is this woman supposed to do, whose hand
is going to be given in marriage to this man,
this hand is supposed to bring teacups and
roll away headaches as mundane as it gets
and that is the significance which also has
been used to subvert the entire institution
and look at the way in which the hand, the
woman is denied of any kind of agency, not
to say that the man has a choice here, he
is also being forced to be a part of this
because this is a need, a social need, a compulsion
that he feels.
I also wanted to recall the opening lines
of Pride and Prejudice where Jane Austen in
19th-century tells us that, it is a well-known
fact that a man who is in possession of good
wealth is also looking out for a wife and
that is the kind of setting, the Sylvia Plath
is also trying to subvert and question and
radically reinvent over here.
So the poem continues to progress in the form
of an interview, the man who is in question
over here, he has been interviewed over here
and this man could be anyone, regardless of
his background, his contacts, if you look
at the way in which poem proceeds, we get
to know that it really does not matter from
where the man is coming, where he is being
positioned it remains pretty much the same,
across time and space, and it becomes more
relevant in the 1960s, of course and we can
also see that it hasn’t really changed even
the contemporary, this mode of interviewing
the expectations and what is being expected
all of that remains the same in a very ironically
and in a very alarming way.
Will you marry it?
It is guaranteed to thumb shut your eyes at
the end and dissolve of sorrow, we make new
stock from the salt, I notice you are stark
naked, how about this suit, black and stiff
but not a bad fit, will you marry it, so the
man is being made ready for the occasion and
the black suit, which fits well, it is a symbol
for marriage, the actual ceremony of getting
married and you know that in this process,
from the time the hand is being identified
and handed over to the man and this ceremony
of getting married.
There’s hardly any gap between this, there
is no need to identify in such as love or
connection or the romantic ideas of made each
other, nothing of that sort, it is very, very
simple, very, very straightforward because
the man needs to get married and as long as
he is sure to have met the right kind of expectations,
he also can be ready with this suit to go
and get married, it is as simple as that very,
very matter of fact, and this is what Sylvia
Plath is also trying to subvert and very,
very brutally in a sarcastic way.
And she is also trying to intervene in this
debate about the role of women during this
time and about questioning, what exactly the
woman do in contributing to the socio-political
developments of this poem, I want you to take,
I want you to also think about the beat generation
during this time, in the post-1977 and 1980s,
feminist scholarship has also tried to address
the question of the role of women in the 1960s,
which is also considered as a very radically
reinventing phase as far as music, literature
and culture, especially in the context of
Europe and America was concerned and if you
again take the case of the beat generation
particular, we will also see that it was an
all man affair and the women whenever they
were mentioned they just were positioned as
either this partners or girlfriends of these
leading beat writers.
So as much as the beat generation and the
leading writers and that is of those times,
much as they tried to subvert the system,
much as they try to radically question the
way in which things were getting institutionalised,
patriarchy was very, very rarely questioned
and patriarchy could not be subverted in the
ways that they were trying to and this is
something that poet writer as Sylvia Plath
is also trying to get it and it is also about
the complete lack of agency, not just from
the side of the woman but also from the side
of the man and this is what makes this poem
very, very real and very hard-hitting because
mentioned earlier, there is no way in which
the man is targeted.
It is the patriarchy, is the system which
is being targeted in a very, very powerful
way and what makes this all the more exciting
is the fact, that this is being written even
before third wave of the feminism had hit,
even before third wave of feminism had begun
to sink in and this continues to be relevant,
there is a sarcastic element not lost, even
when we read this today after these decades
which have passed in between and it continues
to show how a woman is best treated as a domestic
thing and look at the way in which the pronoun
it is being used completely, so it takes away
any kind of identity that a woman is supposed
to have, there is absolutely no way in which
the woman is given a sense of agency or any
other purpose to serve except being handed
over in marriage to the man who is question
here.
Will you marry it, it is waterproof, shatterproof,
proof against fire and bombs through the roof,
believe me, they will bury you in it, so there
is a function that the woman is supposed to
perform, but that is only within the context
of marriage, unless she is located very conveniently
within the institution of marriage in connection
with a man, her function is not complete at
all, that is what this poem is also trying
to subvert in question and very, very sarcastically
undermine.
And the strength and resilience of a woman
which is expected of marriage, that is also
being mocked at over here about how it is
waterproof, shatterproof, proof against fire
and bombs and it is also questioning this
idea of marriage, the eternity of it which
is sanctified through the ceremony of marriage,
through the ritual of marriage by indicating
that the woman is supposed to stay strong,
come what may and this is the idea, which
is being radically questioned in the 1960s
as well but at the same time.
If you are familiar with the history, the
political history of America, you would also
get to know that the 1960s is a time when
the state is also intervening, in a powerful
way to ensure that family as a system remains
intact and that is one of the things that
the state is also using as a defence mechanism
to bring the nation together, to build up
closely knit families, to deeply ingrain the
values of domesticity, the values of relationships
in the context of family and writers like
Sylvia Plath, they also find this extremely
delimiting and as far as Plath is concerned
and we also know this through the many writings
that are available from her journals and specially
in her work the Bell Jar.
How she found the roots of patriarchy growing
deep and deep into every system, which was
getting institutionalised and how she found
herself being suffocated with and to such
an extent that she had just decided to end
her life and the young age of 30, while this
poem remains very, very sarcastic, it is also
about a certain kind of a fear that Plath
is expressing, the fear that the domesticity
would interfere with her, creativity and that
the mundane chores the daily life of domesticity,
the kids about the, how the figure of her
husband and everything would undetermine her
writing seriously.
How that would undermine her personality itself
and how that would radically change what she
is and make her to fit into something that
she does not want to fit herself in, and that
is the fear that this poem also captures in
a wonderful way.
Now your head, excuse me is empty, I have
the ticket for that, come here sweetie out
of the closet, well what do you think of that?
Naked as paper to start but in twenty-five
years, she will be silver in fifty, gold.
It is talking about the permanence of this
institution, of course it is overtly presenting
the very rosy picture, which is also the promise
that this institution, of family offers to
one, but at the same time, the prospect is
also very, very daunting and frightening as
far as this poem is concerned and it talks
about how this speaker, perhaps the speaker
also stands for the society and it really
does not matter what gender the speaker belongs
to.
No matter what gender the speaker belongs
to, the voice is that of the society, it is
the society speaking for the man and making
decisions for the woman and saying I have
the ticket for it, it is all under control,
I have taken care of everything and look at
the term used here, sweetie come here, sweetie
out of the closet, it is a word, in India
ring word which also comes in as very, very
condescending at this point of time, does
not have any idea about love over here, it
has a upper hand and trying to tell the man
and woman, though the addressee is mostly
the man here, trying to tell the man and the
woman that we have taken care of everything,
you just need to do what is expected of you
and not deviate from those conventions that
you are supposed to follow.
But in twenty-five years she will be silver
and in fifty gold, living doll, wherever you
look, look at the imagery of the doll and
I cannot help recalling The Doll’s House
by Ibsen late 19th-century and how Nora the
lead protagonist, how she is forced to walk
out of the doll house, the family within which
he was living, tired of being treated as a
doll, tired of being taken care of and this
imagery is very, very hard to miss over here
and in the late 19th-century as we know when
the doll’s house was first staged in.
Norway first and then across Europe, including
Britain, it was a major blow to the conventions,
when Ibsen’s plays were staged, it was even
considered as an open shoe which would corrupt
the society and in dolls house.
Incidentally, the husband Torvald he is not
necessarily a bad sort of a person, he is
the one who wants to take care of the family,
the only thing which he is denying wife Nora
is a sense of agency and that is enough to
make her walk out, that moment when she realizes
whether it is worth staying with this man.
Who holds his own honor, his own sense of
reputation above everything else and the moment
she realizes that she is, she was being treated
as a doll and there also we find she is not
necessarily blaming Torvald for it, she later
she traces it back to the roots of it are
being traced back to patriarchy, even though
the term self is not mentioned in any way
and she realises that she was always treated
as a doll, first by her father and later by
her husband, she was always being treated
as a doll, a very convenient arrangement.
Where she is always told what to do, Where
she is always taken care of her needs are
being taken care, she has been baby talked
to incessantly and this is something that
begins to hit her very hard and once that
realisation comes in, she find it difficult
to stay back, not even for the sake of kids
and that is the kind of radicalism that had
hit Europe from the late 19th-century and
it only gets more and more cemented in a radical
way.
But in the 1960s.
What makes it even more poignant is the fact
that during a time, even when the mechanisms
of the state, even when various institution
are trying to hammer down the significance
of the family, the significance of sticking
to conventions, we find these voices moving
away from what is expected, moving out of
the confinement, moving out of the state is
of a conforming and radically questioning
these institutions their value systems which
could totally delimit the potential of not
just women, but also men in significant ways.
And from the 1960s onwards, we also find a
lot of scholarship emerging from the context
of feminism and this is also the time when
we find that the nexus between these various
forms of systems undermine the possibilities
of minorities in terms of ethnicity, in terms
of gender, in terms of race, in terms of region
all of these things are highlighted and we
find an intersection, a sort of dialogue across
these various articulations, so this poem
also needs to be read in that larger context
and not merely as an attempt to expose the
flaw or the inherent fallacies of the institution
of marriage, which is being questioned here,
so what is this doll supposed to do?
It can sew, it can cook, it can talk, talk,
talk, it works there is nothing wrong with
it, so as long as it works, as long as it
can perform this basic functions everything
is fine, if it can sew and cook and if it
can talk, talk and talk, if it can just entertain
you and then do whatever is basically needed,
mend clothes or feed you well, it should be
fine, the man is being conditioned to accept
there is nothing more that you should expect
as long as the basic needs are met it’s
fine.
And what Plath finds extremely problematic
here, perhaps, is the complete absence of
an intellectual compatibility that she also
believed it, though she lived with a man who
is also a fellow poet, Ted Hughes, we find
that she was deeply dissatisfied and it is
history also tells that soon after Plath’s
death, a Hughes was also deeply devastated,
they did not have a very rosy marriage, there
were issues always throughout and through
in her journals and in her writing also she
had to convey that it is the institution which
had to be blamed, but it is impossible for
an intellectually craving woman and independent
woman to stay happy within these confinements.
One may choose to disagree, one may choose
to have different opinions about it and there
was, of course, a lot of instances, perhaps
to prove it.
Otherwise, but the importance of this poem
is that, it has subverted everything and it
has reduced everything to the minimal basic
thing is that it is very hard hitting and
it is difficult for us not to see the splitting
contempt which is there throughout and look
at the words which are used in this poem,
there is nothing profound about the way in
which it is stated, it is very, very simple,
it has broken down the entire institution
into very, very simple terms, about the basic
functions, about the basic expectations which
are also quite frightening in a significant
way.
It works there is nothing wrong with it, you
have a hole, it’s a poultice, you have an
eye it is an image, my boy it is your last
resort, will you marry it, marry it, marry
it, there is a sense of urgency towards the
end as this is your last resort, you either
get hold of it, you either claim it now or
perhaps you will not get another chance, look
at the amount of social pressure, which is
being exerted, not just on the woman, but
on the man as well and look at how the speaker
is completely in control, completely in charge
and here it’s not just the woman who has
been denied of an agency, the man does not
seem to have an agency either, we do not find,
the poem is not even indicating that the man
is trying to respond
And that the only kind of response that they
could also tells his addressee, how can we
give you a thing, stop crying, open your hand,
there is a desperation into which the man
is also being forced into and by the end,
it is almost like persuading the man to agree,
will you marry it, marry it, marry it, it
seems as if there is a sense of agency but
it is not there at all, as there’s no choice
left the man has to either marry it or completely
let go of this last chance, as the poem says
my boy, it is your last resort, look at the
way the word.
My boy is also used very, very condescending,
very, very patronising and one of the larger
things that this poem trying to do is that
the victim of patriarchy need not be the woman
alone, it is both the men and women who are
caught within this situation and this realisation
has radically reinvented the kind of feminism,
the kind of feminist politics that has come
to stay from 1960s onwards and even today
when the systems are being questioned and
when the ideologies are being radically reinvented
and reshaped when the politics is being defined
and refined in multiple ways, it is this realisation
which remains at the heart of it.
It is realisation, it is this realisation
which also continues to be seen as one of
the foundational things when one talks about
feminism in the larger context, so in the
framework of an interview, within the framework
of very, very conventional interview, what
the poem is trying to do is that, the mail
interviewee is been given a chance to own
something, so the woman is also seen as a
property, will you marry it, marry it, marry
it, it is almost like being given a good property
to own a good investment, something which
you cannot afford to miss at all, to claim
right away, to claim your ownership over it
and then use that as a commodity which will
in the next twenty-five years, it becomes
silver and in the next fifty years turn into
gold.
So this is like a prized procession and a
good investment, so here the figure of the
women, the moment she gets transformed into
within this institution as a wife, she also
becomes a commodity, a thing of the marketplace,
which will continue to give you certain returns
in terms of prestige, in terms of revenue,
in terms of social upgradation in multiple
ways, and it also ensures that the applicant
is also the right kind of person to receive
it, so more than compatibility at an emotional
level, at an intellectual level, what here
has been shown, is whether there is a social
compatibility, which can also be showcased
in very rosy ways and finally before we wrap
up look at the framework of the poem, look
at the structure of the poem.
The poetic lines break away very awkwardly
and it is very hard to miss some of the, there
is no structure which can be identified, there
is no form to which it sticks, at some level,
it is also suggesting that to be able to fit
in, to be able to fit in very, very, very
well and to be able to claim this thing which
is being offered in terms of marriage, in
terms of the figure of a wife, you also need
to lose something.
Look at the beginning of a poem, where the
speaker is also finding out whether there
is something missing, which also indicates
that it is not really perfection that the
speaker is looking for, it is only about the
willingness to give away something, the willingness
to not remain true to oneself and the willingness
to adapt and the willingness to fit into the
convections that would make the applicant
also a perfect one, someone who can really
really fit in, so also an extension of the
capitalist economy, which had begun to set
in and the expectations of the market place.
Finally, pay attention to the tone which also
indicates a consumerism and the societal pressure,
which also reinforces stereotypes in multiple
ways, and as we all know the 1960s is the
time when commercialism and when the demands
of the market had begun to set in multiple
ways, and we also see this influencing, the
turn of events as far as the shift from modernism
to post-modernism is concerned, we know about
the various things that changed as far as
the market place is concerned, about the ways
in which the television shows began to change,
about the ways in which the idea of culture,
the idea of producing art for the consumerist
society.
How all of those began to change, so this
poem needs to be read within that larger context
to make sense of how it deliberately tries
to situate, particularly institution of marriage
over here, within these frameworks out of
which it is trying to break away as well,
so as we wrap up, I wanted to pay attention
to how it continues to be relevant in today’s
society in the contemporary world, where marriage
and relationships, the institutionalised frameworks
of it.
They continue to be situated the high-powered
world of commercial markets, and that is perhaps
the greatest satire, that is perhaps the most
hard-hitting sarcasm that this poem leaves
us with and it continues to stay relevant
across these decades, though this was published
in the 1960s and Sylvia Plath herself had
spoken thus about this poem, I leave you with
that, in this poem, the speaker is an executive,
a sort of exacting super salesman, he wants
to be sure, the applicant for his marvellous
product really needs it and will treat this,
treat it right.
So it is the marketplace that she also had
in mind and for your information there is
also a reading by Sylvia Plath herself, which
is available on line and many say her admirers
say that it is one of the best that you can
find in terms of her reading and I also encourage
you to access it and look at this poem and
also be familiar with the ideas of the second
wave feminism, when in the context of which
this poem and its articulation begin to make
more sense.
Hopefully, will also get a chance to look
at second wave feminism and look at how that
had radically changed the way in which a women’s
writing began to be read and began to be conceived
within the larger patriarchal structures of,
not just of society but also about literary
reading and literary context and criticism,
I thank you for listening and I look forward
to see you in the next session..
