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Initiation Sylvia Plath Analysis

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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 …show more content…

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

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Sylvia Plath was an American author and poet born in Boston, Massachusetts on October 27, 1932. She is most recognised for her only novel The Bell Jar, and became the first person to receive a post-mortem Pulitzer Prize. Plath began writing by keeping a journal at a young age, after publishing several entries she won a scholarship to Smith College in 1950 (“Sylvia Plath Biography”). While studying, Sylvia Plath was accepted as a guest editor at Mademoiselle magazine in New York.

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In “Initiation,” Sylvia Plath tells the story of a girl, Millicent, and her search for acceptance in the wrong place, and her eventual discovery regarding the importance of individuality. To accomplish this, Plath uses bird imagery, which chronicles Millicent’s transformation into one who values individuality as opposed to conformity. She uses “flock” to describe the sorority and club mentality portrayed in the piece, and “heather birds” to symbolize an individual. However, while these piece is grounded in a young girl’s search for acceptance, as evident in the words “Millicent had waited for acceptance, longer than most,” the piece can also be viewed as a microcosm of society. This is true as, similar to the sorority within the piece, the “select flock”, or the group in which most desire to be within larger-scale society, looks down on those who are “a bit too different,” a phrase which a member of the sorority uses to describe a girl who had not been chosen to join the

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