Sylvia Plath Essay

Poets Sylvia Plath, Amy Winehouse and Judith Wright all express the idea that men degrade women in order to assert their dominance. Sylvia Plath and Amy Winehouse criticise the men in their lives that have abused them. Amy Winehouse, personalises her struggle; her overuse of personal pronouns emphasises her reliance on the men around her, allowing the audience to view her as a victim. Judith Wright, in comparison, gives a voice to the voiceless; in her poems, the emphasis is to challenge the dehumanising attitudes enforced by white men at the time on both women. Sylvia Plath, like Amy Winehouse, antagonises men for her problems she has endured throughout her life. In the poem ‘Daddy’, she characterises her ex-husband as the antagonist who,

Judith Wright expresses this suffering heavily through her poem ‘Naked Girl and Mirror’, in which she emphasises the mental issues that arise due to feminine body expectations. Judith Wright expresses the idea that women can “shut out here from my own self” and that women develop the idea that “I must serve you; I will obey”, an idea which is allowed by societal expectations of women and one which has the potential of severe consequences. With imagery of the naked girl symbolising the beauty of femininity that exists on the inside, rather than what is perceived on the outside by those that “stare at you in fear”. In her poem ‘Eve to her Daughters’, she uses Biblical allusions of the story of Adam and Eve to express the idea that women have merely wasted themselves so that they can blindly follow men. With her use of rhetorical questioning, “Perhaps nothing exists but our faults?” expressing the insecurities many women endure as a result of these beliefs. Sylvia Plath, in comparison, has image issues as a result of her failed relationships; in her poem ‘Lady Lazarus’, she uses Nazi imagery to convey her depressed mental state to her audience. In her poem, she implies that she has attempted suicide but that she was ultimately unable to actually kill herself. In which, she uses the holocaust allusion “A cake of soap, A wedding ring, A gold filling”. This symbolises her belief that she has no actual value left for society and that her possessions would be better in the hands of someone else. Furthermore, she uses sexualisation of her body to express the fact that once she dies, she is more than “skin and bone” and that she is the “same, identical woman”. Like Sylvia Plath, Amy Winehouse’s image problems also arise from failed relationships; in her case however, she is direct to her audience about her problems. With the poem ‘You Know I’m No Good’, revealing the depth of