Essay Example on Women's Fight for Equality: A Glimpse into History's Harsh Reality

Introduction

They say history is the best teacher, yet a bad house. As a teacher, history has reminded us over and over through a variety of literature dating to ancient ages that women have often suffered oppression, humiliation, victimization and often considered weaker sex in the society. Being a bad house, history has forced feminist and proponents of social justice, social order and equality rights have fought hard to help the society depart from such subjugated, draconian, and inhuman treatments meted out on women. The literal work of Sylvia Plath and Adrienne Rich comes in handy in accounting the poets and poem place in speaking out and advocate for honorable treatments towards women. The two poets highlighted the rot, injustice, and oppression that women in the society were facing by examining their lives as poets and women in the post-war era. The primary thesis for this paper will, therefore, focus on exploring approaches, strategies and nature of self-focus as either women or poets and thereby expanding the subject matter of poetry. Also, the analysis will highlight how the two poets brought to light new poetic techniques, themes and attitudes. The main literal works that will be analyzed include Daddy by Plath and Rich’s Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law.

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How Sylvia Plath and Adrienne Rich Expanded the Subject Matter of Poetry

In the 1950s, feminism in the literature was extremely rare, a fact that the increased feminist canon in modern society may tend to mask. The work on both Plath and Rich is often credited with initiating feminism perspective and voice in poetry. Their poems introduced a new dimension and emphasized on the importance of listening to such feminist voices or else the female population would tolerate it no more. During the war and immediately post-war era, the society perceived and recognized women role in the community from the traditional home confined roles. Qazzaz writes that there was a misconception as to women feeling happy in housewifery since a study completed in 1957 by Betty Friedan showed most women were not satisfied or happy with the life of a housewife (p. 210). The media and the literature praised those women often helping in family, marriage, housekeeping, and giving birth as opposed to those pursuing intellectual achievements or focusing of office work. The place of the woman in the society, therefore, became limited to the household chores, which increased their degree of oppression, poverty, and segregation in the decision-making table. Speaking out against the misconception by Plath and Rich in their poets was a way of

Apart from their well-founded feminist activism, the two poets engendered and cultivated the rich use of domestic imagery. Instead of the commonly witnessed condemnation and rejection of confining a woman to domestic chores, the two poets focused on revising the aspect of domesticity through the imagery presented in their poems. They expressed their tribulations, oppressions testimonies, and subjugation as a matter of social concerns. The woman role in the family is more or less as observed by Carey (p.2) who state that Plath and Rich perceived domesticity as part of their rich intellectually conferred obligation, which was often abused by men. For them, domestic duties should not be considered as trivial or sentimental drivel. Carey further points out that “Plath’s wry irony, and Rich’s strident polemics” managed to demystify and deconstruct of traditionally patriarchal stereotypes about the role of women in the society (p. 3).

Exploration of New Poetic Techniques, Themes and Attitudes from Plath and Rich Work

Both Plath and Rich in their selected poets have a significant contribution to new poetic techniques, themes, and attitudes. The new form of techniques, themes, and attitudes adds more value to the role of the literature, especially poems, in shaping social changes as delineated in the subheading below.

Attitudes in Plath and Rich Poems

The two selected poem employs a tough tone that depicts an attitude that departs from the submissive and oppressed women voice in a patriarchal society to one that denotes a readiness to fight for their space in the society. Plath in her poem demonstrates rebellion to oppression and the stereotypical images of mothers and wives which often characterized the women in the post-war era. In the time, women voice was often undermined. The use of a rebellious tone against the challenges that women faced started ignited feminist activism and the calls for equality in society. Plath’s expresses the need for social change: “The villagers never liked you. They are dancing and stamping on you” and expresses rebellion and breaking point: “Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.”

In an analysis of Rich’s poem “Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law”, Kumar argues that the poem adopts a powerful and angry tone aimed at affirming Rich’s feminism statement (p. 254). The poem portrays the poets’ rebellion both as a woman and a poet. The choices of the words, especially the title, in Rich’s poem are consciously done and symbolic to the role of women in society. The use of snapshots, as opposed to photographs or studio, portrays the feeling of bits of analysis, which can be broadened to amplify the rot in the family when a full picture is considered for analysis. The use of the daughter-in-law, in a poem that is deeply rooted in feminism themes portrays lack of identity among women, where their identity is defined by their relation to the husband. She chooses daughter-in-law as opposed to other relational expressions such as sister, mother, or just daughter to expound analysis of the different levels of women in the society. She exposes the frustration women face and the male influence, which affects even women to women relationship, as depicted through her relationship with the mother-in-law.

The rebellious attitude is further demonstrated in Rich’s poem suggesting that most women are their worst enemies and trap themselves by fighting amongst them “the beak that grips her” instead of facing the dominance of the man head-on (Kumar, p. 256). She bemoans and demeans the mother-in-law for prioritizing superficial beauty as opposed to intellectual capability claiming the mother-in-law mind is “heavy with useless experience, rumor, and fantasy.”

Themes in Plath and Rich Poems

One of the dominant themes in the two poems is that of women failing to realize their full potential as a result of patriarchal control. Path’s poem “Daddy” reveals the hardship she faces under her daddy domination, which she considers scary: “I have always been scared of you.” Unfortunately, the escape route for Plath was to consider the death of the domineering figure: “Daddy, I have had to kill you.” She figured that killing the dominating and oppressive individual, would set her free, but replacing the daddy with a husband “I made a model of you,A man in black with a Meinkampf look, and a love of the rack and the screw. And I said I do, I do” set her back to the shackles of patriarchal society. The poet bemoans the male-dominated society that offers women fewer opportunities and constrains women the freedom to make their decisions. The domination over women is also evidenced in Rich’s poem, where the personal emancipates from being the daughter-in-law, to the woman (us), and later to one with confused identify where to refers to the narrator as “she.”

The male domination effect drives the feminism and the call for women to break-off from the stereotypic ascription of their place in society. Rich’s poem condemns the woman concentration outlook instead while allowing the man to advance intellectually. She expresses her deep admiration for women to become self-aware of their contribution, identity, and gender roles in society. According to Rich, the thinking woman has to go through an aggressive process of physical deformation given that the society fails to offer the woman a voice of her own. The struggles the women go through are depicted through the two generations, daughter in law and mother in law, with the daughter representing modernity and the mother representing the traditional woman. The arguments reveal that the two generations face their fair share of frustrations from the males. The modern generation of women is, however, more frustration with both the male domination and the older women both undermining the daughter in law space to thrive. Despite showing self-awareness and need to fight for their space, the modern woman has a lot to do to overcome the challenges.

Another theme presented by the two poets in their selected literal work is the reflection of the social problems through the home setup. The poets aim at illustrating the normal struggles women go through, which may be common to the general women population in society. In so doing, they raise hope for those feeling lonely, which at the same time eliciting the emotions for change to reverse the situation right from the home for the society to change. The female population is further advice from the two poems to own the changes they may wish to see, instead of waiting for such changes to be presented by the dominant male gender (Qazzaz, 2012).

Poetic Techniques in Plath and Rich Poems

Plath in the poem “Daddy” is argued to be struggling with her identity. She purges her further harshly as if expressing her inner conflict and projecting it to the society and rationalizing that her troubles are similar to what other women in the society are going through secondary to male domination. She bemoans the patriarchy figure, her father, for suppressing her ability to realize her full potential. The poem “Daddy”, shows the ambivalent relationship between the daughters who has notable admiration for her father, but also depicts the hatred and hard feelings she harbors for her dad, who she compares with the Nazi regime. The harsh comparison between the dad and the Nazi, pitting her as equivalent to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust is often criticized and exaggerated. In the poem, Plath writes “I thought every man was you … Chuffing me off like a Jew.” The line signifies the inability of the women in the society facing oppression with no avenue to express their feelings. The technique of drawing comparison to the extreme harshness of the time, Nazi regime, was aimed at conveying in the strongest tone possible the frustrations that women were going through.

Conclusion

In conclusion, both Plath and Rich made profound contributions to poetry. The two poems from the two poets discussed to exemplify the influence time, and setting can have on the theme, techniques, and attitude of a poem. At the time the two poems discussed were being written, the poets were striving in their literary career while raising families. The struggles they faced during this time as women, wives, and mothers are likely to have shaped the poems. In addition to having families, the period of the poem was also characterized by significant patriarchal ideations and stereotypical notions sidestepping the female gender, thus the prominent feminism theme in the two poems.

Work Cited

Carey, Allison. Self-Transformation: Images of Domesticity in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath and Adrienne Rich. University of Tennessee Honors Thesis Projects. 199

Kumar, Jeevan. Adrienne Rich’s “Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law”: A study. International Journal of English and Literature. 2013; 4(6), pp.254 - 258

Qazzaz, Esra’a. Acts of Resistance in Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” “Lady Lazarus,” and “Ariel”: A Journey from Oppression to Emancipation. International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies, 2017; 4(1), pp. 209 – 218.

Rich, Adrienne. Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law: Poems of 1954-63.