Sylvia Plath

Almost all of Plath’s poems are so deep and full of emotions that it would be impossible to be impacted by them. However, her intricate use of linguistic and literary devices help the reader to understand the true meaning of her poems therefore adding to the impact. For this essay I will look mainly at the linguistic and literary features Plath uses in her poem ‘Daddy’.

This poem, like many of her others, uses an intricate patterning of sounds to create a certain moods at points in the poem. For instance the first three stanzas of the poem uses assonance; the soothing sound ‘oo’; “you do not do”, “I have had to kill you” and, “Where it pours bean green over blue”. This sound draws out the words resulting in a longer, protracted sound. This slows the flow of these stanzas and creates a calm mood. This patterning of sounds can also be seen in her other poems. For example in Miss Drake Proceeds to Supper, in which she patterns the ‘d’ harsh sound to create a faster pace and cutting mood.

Plath creates imagery in many of her poems with the use of colour. In Daddy she patterns the use of colour from black and white in the first stanza to black and red in the eleventh and twelfth stanza. The colours black and white are antithetical and when placed in close proximity connote racism, or in this case fascism. The black is used to connote the evil of the Germans while the white represents the innocence of the Jews. Therefore Plath is using colours to create imagery of her view of the suppression of the Jews, this creates an empathetic impact on the reader.

However, the later patterning of black and red are used symbolically. She writes, “Bit my pretty red heart in two.” The adjective she has used to describe her heart is ‘red’ but in the last line her use of the adjective black is also linked to the description of the heart symbolising that her heart is black, which connotes death. This imagery is very emotive; therefore, creating a significant impact on the reader.

Furthermore, in this poem Plath uses the linguistic device of apostrophe to create an impact on the reader. She writes, “Daddy, I have had to kill you.” This device conveys to the reader that this poem is addressed to her Father. Many of Plath’s poems are about her father but the device of directing this poem at him has a much stronger effect on the reader because she speaks so openly to him in the poem, even though the reader may be aware of the fact that he is dead.

Plath patterns the pronoun ‘you’ to sustain the direct address of her father throughout the poem. However, she also used this pronoun with a concealed intention as it seems also to be addressing the reader. The last stanza use the pronoun in every line, “There’s a stake in your fat black heart

And the villagers never liked you……”

This patterning of the pronoun includes the reader because it seems as though she is subtly talking to the reader of the poem as well. In this case this linguistic device makes a stronger impact on the reader than if Plath were to have written the poem in first or third person because of the emotive nature of much of the lexis in the poem that appears to be directly addressed to the reader.

The lexical field within this poem, as has been the case in some of Plath’s other poetry, is that of war. The phrase, “barb wire snare” and her numerous references to “Jews”, “Germans” and fascism are just some of the lexis that connote that of war. Her overindulgence in lexis from this field is so overwhelmingly hyperbolic that it gives the poem a sarcastic tone. Plath purposefully does this to create a light hearted twist in a poem that on the surface seems to the reader to be very derisive and cruel.

Plath creates a childlike feeling in the thirteenth stanza when she writes, “And they stuck me together with glue.” This line alludes to the children’s poem ‘Humpty Dumpty’ reinforcing the childish noun ‘Daddy’. This juxtaposition of the childlike allusion and lexis with the hard hitting, raw lexical field of war creates a binary opposition. The association of these two opposite images is rather unpleasant making the reader feel uncomfortable.

Plath’s use of enjambment has a strong effect as the poem seems to pour out of Plath and onto the page in a disordered but constant stream of imagery and sadistic phrases. This creates the hateful tone that Plath intentionally uses in some of her other poetry about her Father. Caesura is used to help make the poem somewhat readable but does not break the flow of ‘hate’ that the enjambment creates. The syntax of many of the sentences in the poem is also disordered which adds to this effect. Combined the syntax and enjambment create an impact on the reader because of the overflowing feeling of Plath’s hate that they convey.

In conclusion it is clear to see that the subject of this poem is one that Plath feels incredibly strong emotions towards, in this case hate. It would therefore be impossible to not have some sort of impact on the reader. However, through her use of linguistic and literary devices like assonance, imagery, apostrophe, lexical fields, allusions and enjambment Plath conveys her message and emotions effectively to the reader resulting in a much stronger impact.

The poem “Jilted”, written by Sylvia Plath, has its subject based on the disappointment of love which resulted from a female being neglected by her male lover, who probably must have gone off in pursuit of another female.

This poem has a simple abab rhyme scheme. The words of this poem were expertly chosen to describe the sour and acidic feelings that accompany betrayal and abandonment. Overall, it is obvious that the tone of this poem is sour and caustic. The title “jilted” is a word that has harsh sound which already hints to readers that the poem is not about any pleasant or happy experiences.

In the first stanza, Plath compares her tears to vinegar, which is a substance that is corrosive, pungent, and stinging. The word vinegar shows on a surface level that her relationship was over, emphasizing the fact that she is extremely depressed. Later, she refers to an acetic star and a caustic wind. All of these rich imageries imply a tone that is harsh and corrosive. By comparing her tears to “vinegar”, Plath successfully expressed the idea that not only the crying was sad, but the tear in itself was sad. This creates a realistic image of her sadness after being abandoned by her lover.

In the second stanza, Plath uses the imagery of a sour expression that ensues after tasting a lemon to describe her inner feelings. “Wry-face” suggests that Plath is disgusted, disappointed, and perhaps annoyed. The phrase “sour lemon moon” is a symbol of loneliness and desolation. This metaphor gives us the image that the female has left earthly life and has transcended to a secluded and private spot so that she can grieve over her bad relationship. This also helps indirectly suggest she is now alone and her lover has left her for someone else.

In the last stanza, Plath metaphorically compares her drooping and wilted heart to that of a small, sour, unripe plum. Plath expresses her pain at being jilted and describes her disposition of being sour and caustic, and her heart now wilted. Plath uses the phrase “my lean, unripened heart” to tell her readers she is so badly hurt that her heart may never recover or heal.

The purpose of the poem is to express dissatisfaction and unhappiness for a personal experience of Plath. Every word Plath used strengthens the mood of the entire poem that is filled with bitterness.

Bibliography

http://www.angelfire.com/zine/donnamford/confessional.html

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5650

The Midwest suburb dealer was once a top Daimler-Chrysler dealer for three years in a row ending 2007. During this time, the dealer was the envy of the entire Midwest car market because of its spectacular sales performance along practically all categories of vehicles. For so many years, the dealership was an apple of Chrysler’s eyes. At the end of the year 2008 however, the dealership dropped to the lowest rung in all 87 Midwest dealers.

From a sterling performance of $1.2 billion group revenues in 2006, the dealership revenues slid to just $120 million during 2008 or just a mere 10 per cent of its peak performance. What happened to an erstwhile enviable dealer becoming a corporate issue of great proportions? The financials are obvious but what non-financial factors were responsible for the steep decline in revenues?

The critical incidents: Pre 2005-2007

The Midwest Chrysler dealer commenced business in May 1995 as a used car dealer starting off with a $2 million investment from the partnership of John Clarkson, an accountant by profession; and Stephen Howell, both in their early thirties.

The partners agreed that John Clarkson will become the general manager for three years with the other partner Stephen Howell, a former used car salesman, becoming the general manager for three years as well starting 2003 to 2005 after which John assumes back the position from 2006 to 2009.

The dealership did very well selling used cars up to 1999 when the partners found an opportunity to become an exclusive Chrysler dealer. From the $2 million investment, above industry returns jacked up total resources to $20 million by December 2001 and revenues of $50 million.  A sales force of 20 topnotch salesmen from competing dealers were recruited and formed into a cluster sales force of two and assigned in nearby counties and further beyond the state.

Sales commissions were increased to 5 percent above industry to sustain the drive of the twenty account executives.  By the end of 2002, total revenues hit $86 million with total assets of $36 million. Upbeat sales were triggered by aggressive selling of both new and old line of cars, supported by aggressive financing from every financial services outfit available in the area.

Motivated by the sales trend, the company further increased its sales force by another ten and covered nearby states of Missouri, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin, all considered bright areas for almost every Chrysler variant.

Thanks to the aggressive sales force that dominated the dealership from 2002 to 2005.

By the end of 2005, total corporate resources reached $140 million with revenues hitting $600 million. At this point however, several financing firms were starting to distance themselves from the Midwest dealer for one significant reason: the account executives have been referring subprime buyers, demanding and collecting bigger commissions, proposing too aggressive financing terms than before and threatening to form their own financial services group to siphon the good accounts and refer subprime accounts to the local financiers. The sales force was discovered to have favored certain financiers.

The general manager at this point was Stephen Howell whose term started 2002 and ended 2005. It was he who conducted an aggressive hiring of account executives that generated the unprecedented revenues. Hiring of new employees was likewise intensified that bloated the dealer workforce by more than 30 non-productive employees without real assignments. Many of these workers were referred by the account executives.

Howell accommodated these referrals without referring to the budget control systems adopted by the company, one of the several internal control systems put in place by Clarkson before he stepped down in 2002.

Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel “The Bell Jar” employs many of the same confessional techniques and themes of her poetic work. While the novel is confessional, it is also provides sociological commentary (and insight) into the processes of medical treatment and the social ostracization and victimization of the mentally ill.

A basic technique used in the novel, by Plath, is to present a seemingly “normal” world and then, by way of internal monologue and character development, allow the reader to glimpse a highly studied and carefully described portrayal of the way that mental illness impacts both society and the individual.

By expressing a personal encounter with metal illness, Plath, through the character of Esther, presents a ‘case study” in clinical depression and bipolar disorder without resorting to clinical diagnoses or psychological language or theories. Instead, her literary interpretation of mental illness functions to expand the clinical understanding of mental disorders by providing cognitive insight into the experienced phenomena of mental illness.

The opening line of the novel: “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer the electrocuted the Rosenbergs” (Plath, 1) reveals the novel’s essential theme and conflict: that of the individual who stands “outside looking in” with regard to their society: it is a theme of psychological rather than physical exile, though Esther identifies, via the powerful verb “electrocuted,” with the physical suffering of the Rosenbergs who were tried and executed for espionage and treason.

Because the central conflict in “the Bell Jar” is internal, Plath constructs a dynamic and multi-faceted character whose preoccupations range from fashion, to dating, to the themes of great literature and to the essential meanings of life and death. Throughout the novel more is shown than told; that is, Plath refrains from divulging information about Esther directly; instead, she constructs scenes which transmit the internal character conflicts through symbolism and metaphor. A clinical diagnosis of Esther’s mental illness can be made by deeply exploring the literary techniques of the novel.

The novel’s plot is relatively simple: a young, ambitious, and very talented woman wins a summer internship as a big-time New York magazine. While in New York, the young woman, Esther, suffers a series of unpleasant and often dangerous situations, begins to feel sense of hypocrisy and unhappiness in herself and in the world of glamour-publishing and seems to rebel against this hypocrisy (and sexism) by quitting her internship and throwing her expensive wardrobe out of her hotel window.

Then, after returning to the suburbs to live with her mother, and failing to begin both her hoped-for novel and her college thesis, Esther begins to act increasingly erratically and self-destructively, severing her relationships and losing touch with her own creativity and ambition, until she is referred to a psychiatrist. Esther, however, is not psychologically unstable due to weakness or deformation: this is clear from the novel’s portrayal of her as a bright and shining and talented “golden girl” who wins poetry prizes and scholarships and is dating a medical student and writing term papers on Joyce.

After being treated with electroshock therapy, Esther’s condition and crisis become more and more severe until she attempts suicide, is “saved,” and sent to a mental hospital where she again receives electroshock therapy. The novel fails to provide any concrete resolution to Esther’s crisis, and in doing so, avoids making any determination about the benefits of Esther’s clinical diagnoses and treatment.

However, the emotional arc of the narrative can certainly be said to move toward the positivistic and there are potentialities and capacities that are reinstated into Esther’s character after her treatment. To fully understand the process of Esther’s breakdown (and apply a clinical diagnosis), the reader must read deeply into the novel and consider deeply the relationships of the characters and the cross-ties adn relationships which fluctuate, not to the rhythms of a traditional novel’s story-arc, but to the weird rhythms of Esther’s own mental illness.

In fact, the narrative is structured very similarly to a poem in that metaphorical and symbolic expression convey the essential dynamics of the story’s themes at a far more attenuated level than the conventional storytelling elements of plot, conflict, and resolution. Of the latter, Plath conspicuously avoids classical execution; for example, “The Bell Jar” posits no clear antagonist, no externalized central conflict, and refrains from set-closure at its climax. This is a way by which the clinical diagnosis of Esther’s diagnosis can be made.

Her initial relationships portrayed in the novel include a “mentor” in New York, the editor Jaycee, an “older sister” friend named Doreen, a fiancee named Buddy, and a literary mentor and benefactress named Philomena Guinea who was is a wealthy, famous novelist. Each of the relationships reflects an aspect of the healthy personality: ambitious, creative, socially engaged, and creative. Also, Esther’s erotic drive, while never posited in the novel as “resolvable” decreases until she is able to view sex as only an oppressive act against women.

As Esther’s plight worsens, each of the relationships is severed. The clinical diagnosis which seems most applicable to Esther Greenwood would be that of clinical depression and a bipolar personality. Interestingly enough, bipolar disorder is often associated with creative minds and artists. read at one level, “The Bell Jar” describes the plight of the artistic mind in modern society as well as the plight of the artistic mind gripped by clinical mental illness.

The key to separating where the individualist, the artist and rebel lies in Esther Greenwood and where the “madwoman,” the victim of a clinical mental illness lies is to apply rigorous methodology to the explication of the novel as a piece of literature. One such scene, which is representative of this technique used throughout “The Bell Jar,” is the scene when Esther, having traveled to new York upon winning an internship at a famous fashion magazine, throws her expensive wardrobe out of her hotel window.

“The wind made an effort, but failed, and a batlike shadow sank toward the roof garden of the opposite penthouse” (Plath, 90). Such compressed and highly symbolic language forwards both character development (Esther is mentally unstable) as well as foreshadowing with the bat representing death and Esther’s ultimate plunge into attempted suicide. There is no gaiety in the scene, which if in evidence would suggest a triumphant rejection of the superficialities described in the novel about the fashion-district of New York and Esther’s experiences there.

Instead, a sens of doom pervades, along with a sense of self-destruction and psychological instability: “Piece by piece, I fed my wardrobe to the night wind, and flutteringly, like a loved one’s ashes, the gray scraps were ferried off, to settle here, there, exactly where I would never know, in the dark hart of New York. ” (Plath 91). This single scene stands as emblematic of Esther’s (and Plath’s) essential plight: that of the bipolar personality and the track toward attempted suicide.

The scene also represents the symptomatic progression of full-blown bipolar personality disorder which is characterized by depressive episodes and suicidal obsessions. The combination of high-achievement, goal-setting, ambition, creativity, task-setting, and personal expression with an equally profound sense of purposelessness, meaninglessness, lack of energy, lack of sex drive, and plummeting self identity and a plummeting sense of self-esteem are compressed brilliantly into the above-described scene. By explicating the symbolism deeply, the bipolar disorder is easily uncovered.

The feelings Esther has of not being able to connect with her life, of not comprehending her society or valuing her interpersonal relationships are aspects of the acute depressive crisis which marks the depressive “extreme” of the bipolar disorder. The novel describes how an acute depressive episode can lead to suicide even when treatment is being administered. The treatment which would seem most applicable for Esther Greenwood by modern diagnostic processes is not that which is provided for her in the novel: electroshock therapy.

Rather, what is indicated is that Esther should be treated with psycho therapy, primarily, with perhaps the inclusion of certain, limited medication. The inclusion of family-centered therapy, social rhythm therapy, and cognitive therapy along with medication would provide the best hope for Esther’s clinical recovery. However, the process of metal disorder described in the novel is mush wider, much more comprehensive than even modern therapies would seem to be an adequate redress for — although even a slight improvement in prognosis would probably have saved Esther from suicide.

In order to restore and strengthen hern creative gifts and reinstate her standing in society, the clinical treatments might at least give Esther an impetus toward a healthy rather than self-destructive life. So carefully designed is Esther’s portrayal in “The Bell Jar,” that the reader stands an ever-increasing chance of identifying as deeply with Esther’s plight as Esther herself seems to identify with the plight of the Rosenbergs.

In other words, the last thing which is intimated in the novel is that Esther bears any personal responsibility for her mental illness or the social stigmas that are attached to it. In fact, I personally do not belive that there was anything Esther could have done or should have done to “prevent” her collapse. From rape to institutionalized chauvinism and the “saint-whore” syndrome, Esther experiences a multitude of the sociological injuries borne against women in America.

She also, as a poet, stands for the sociological persecution of artists and the cultural misunderstanding of their sensitivities. Throughout the novel, Esther’s internal dialogue and descriptions of situations stands in bold contrast to the mundane and often mean or ignorant dialogue and observations of the novel’s minor characters. In addition to these deeper, more socially and politically inspired themes, “ The Bell Jar” captures intimate details of middle-class adolescence: the struggle to succeed, the position often social outcast, and the cruelties and injustices of love and eroticism.

This is why The Bell Jar is such an important novel: because it places an intimately personal, yet universal, protagonist in the grip of what modern psychology and modern psychiatry understand as a clinical mental illness. Rather than approach the topic clinically, Plath approaches the theme poetically and confessionally and draws the reader into a closes identification with Esther Greenwood. The result is that the alert reader, even one who is familiar with the clinical processes of bipolar disorder, will recognize a personal plight beneath the level which is clinically descriptive.

The reader’s identification with Esther then takes the form of first hope, then skepticism, about the clinical treatments (and practitioners) which are engaged ostensibly in working for Esther’s recovery. Whether one reads the central theme of The Bell Jar as one of individuality and the alienation from modern society or as a literary portrayal of a clinically defined mental disorder, the conclusion that individuals who suffer from mental illness are both victimized and stigmatized in modern society is clear.

My personal feeling is that Esther Greenwood is far more of a universal character than many would like to belive and that her portrayal in The Bell Jar indicates both the destructive influence of mental illness and the destructive influence of modern society which is revealed to be both widespread and institutionalized. References Plath, Sylvia The Bell Jar Bantam Books New York NY 1971.