Initiation Sylvia Plath Analysis

In “Initiation”, Sylvia Plath’s internal conflict of the protagonist Millicent reveals that one must experience being degraded in order to fully embrace oneself and accept true happiness. Throughout the text, Millicent has her heart set on being part of a specific sorority. She hated the way she was and the way she was looked down at by others and she thought that involving herself in the sorority would help her get out of that position. At the beginning Millicent’s friend, Tracey, discusses the aspect of change and that not matter what Millicent does, she will change when she receives a position in the sorority. Millicent thinks, “How horrible would it be if nobody changed...if she were condemned to be the plain, shy Millicent of a few years

She hadn’t made any friends, she was being bossed around, she was being forced into things she didn’t want to be doing, and was being humiliated. The sorority had provoked this change in the first place to be popular and cool, but it also gradually changed her into someone who enjoys herself and knows who her true friends are. Millicent thinks, “Then there was another thing that bothered her. Leaving Tracey on the outskirts. Because that is the way it would be; Millicent had seen it happen before” (pg.247). The other girls in the sorority are popular, cool, and they don’t care about others, they just care about the way other people look at them. However Millicent, shows that although she want to be popular and cool, she knows that a true friend wouldn’t humiliate her and make her feel bad about herself, that true friend is Tracey. She knows and understands that if she continues to be a part of the sorority she will become one of them, but she also knows that she doesn’t want to leave Tracey behind. Millicent describes, “Within Millicent another melody sored, strong and exuberant, a triumphant answer to the music of the darting birds that sang so clear and lilting over the far