Female Masculinity in Sylvia Plath's Poetry

Abstract

The present dissertation explores female masculinity in Sylvia Plath's poetry. As Plath is angry with patriarchy for driving women to neurosis by inflicting injustice and exploitation on them, she attributes masculinist traits to her female speakers so as to subvertthe patriarchal notions of looking at women.Sylvia Plath’s poems are pregnant with the idea of liberation of women from the limited territory of patriarchal sap. In her poetry, she poignantly expresses and exposes the age-old repression of women and allows a gust of rebellion to avert the male domination. In the partiarchally constructed society, most women have already internalized the stereotypical roles that mark their own marginalization. They are pretty complacent with their submissive roles, motherliness and domesticated, dull as well as nullified existence. They simply comply with what patriarchy wishes them to do. This is what Plath wants to subvert in her poetry.