This is a poem-guided analysis through Sylvia Plath's work and life concerning her womanhood and motherhood. Proceeding from her 1962 verse play for radio, Three Women, as in a kind of mise-en-abyme, I will delve into and read her writings in search of indications that may connect real and fictional episodes, through the means of collation of her published works and her private writings. The aim of this paper is to compare the fictional experience represented in her works with the actual experience from which she drew inspiration, in order to discuss her mixed feelings about motherhood and womanhood, in relation to the social-cultural exposition of her time and core issues that are still relevant today. Therefore, in this paper, I will touch many topics, such as rape culture, sexist double standard and oppressive gender roles in a patriarchal society; fear of medicalization and childbirth, abortion and miscarriage grief; the joy and power of motherhood and its connected creative outburst. The three voices of the long poem are but fragmentation of Plath's voice, further fragmented in her poems, journals, letters and prose, which in this work I have tried to reassemble even if "I shall never get you put together entirely" (The Colossus).
Questa tesi vuole essere un'analisi guidata attraverso l'opera e la vita di Sylvia Plath, con un focus sulle tematiche della questione di genere e della maternità. Partendo dal radiodramma del 1962, "Three Women", come in una sorta di mise-en-abyme, approfondirò e leggerò i suoi scritti alla ricerca di indicazioni che possano collegare episodi reali e fittizi, attraverso la collazione delle opere da lei pubblicate e dei suoi scritti privati. L'obiettivo di questo lavoro è quello di confrontare l'esperienza fittizia rappresentata nelle sue opere con l'esperienza reale da cui ha tratto ispirazione, al fine di discutere sentimenti complessi sulla maternità e sulla femminilità, in relazione all'esposizione socio-culturale del suo tempo (1950-60) e a questioni centrali che sono ancora oggi attuali. Pertanto, in questo paper, verranno trattati molti argomenti, come cultura dello stupro, doppio standard sessista e ruoli di genere oppressivi in una società patriarcale; medicalizzazione del parto e aborto; gioia e potere creativo della maternità e exploit poetico. Le tre voci del poemetto non sono che una frammentazione della voce della stessa autrice, ulteriormente frammentata nelle sue poesie, nei suoi diari, nelle sue lettere e nella sua prosa, che in questo lavoro ho cercato di rimettere insieme, anche se, per citare Plath, "non riuscirò mai a ricomporti interamente" ("The Colossus").
"She wants to be everything": gender and motherhood in Sylvia Plath's Three Women
MARCATAJO, DONATELLA
2022/2023
Abstract
This is a poem-guided analysis through Sylvia Plath's work and life concerning her womanhood and motherhood. Proceeding from her 1962 verse play for radio, Three Women, as in a kind of mise-en-abyme, I will delve into and read her writings in search of indications that may connect real and fictional episodes, through the means of collation of her published works and her private writings. The aim of this paper is to compare the fictional experience represented in her works with the actual experience from which she drew inspiration, in order to discuss her mixed feelings about motherhood and womanhood, in relation to the social-cultural exposition of her time and core issues that are still relevant today. Therefore, in this paper, I will touch many topics, such as rape culture, sexist double standard and oppressive gender roles in a patriarchal society; fear of medicalization and childbirth, abortion and miscarriage grief; the joy and power of motherhood and its connected creative outburst. The three voices of the long poem are but fragmentation of Plath's voice, further fragmented in her poems, journals, letters and prose, which in this work I have tried to reassemble even if "I shall never get you put together entirely" (The Colossus).File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12608/60484