Social Status of Women in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath

Abstract

Sylvia Plath, a name that could never be forgotten. She is remembered as a brilliant American poet for the bulk of touching poetry she had left drawing most out of her own tragic life. Up to the very last moment, she led an unfulfilled life. She disliked of being a woman specifically due to the constraints the society imposed on her gender. Her soul thrived to leap far beyond this uncultured patriarchal system. As a young and growing poet, she strongly believed in the capacities in terms of what women could achieve. Her powerful, sometimes violent verses transparently express her anger towards social injustice caused to women. Her poems bring to light the defects of the patriarchal society in which she had lived. Poems like Daddy, Ariel, Jailer and Pursuit echo her struggles against the male-dominated society. In this way, her verses express the need for emancipation of her gender socially and politically. This paper aims at finding how Plath has successfully incorporated the social status of women in her powerful poetry.