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Sylvia PlathThe Applicant
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1963A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Patriarchal Society’s Treatment of Women
“The Applicant” works as a feminist poem as it critiques the way society commodifies and dehumanizes women, especially when it comes to the institution of marriage and the social conventions associated with it. The entire poem’s premise centers around the way men “shop” for a wife and the reasons why men are encouraged to marry. At no point in the poem are the woman’s needs, desires, or perspective explored; instead, the woman is an object that the man needs in order to conform to the expectation society has of him. Plath identifies how patriarchy is a negative for both women and men, though the poem focuses on the effects this society has on women.
The main way Plath communicates patriarchal society's treatment of women is by having the speaker assign all meaning to the woman based on how she fulfills a need of the male applicant. The key line here, which Plath includes in such a matter-of-fact way in the middle of the third stanza, is, “And do whatever you tell it” (Line 13). Here, the speaker presents the woman as nothing more than a servant to the man whose only purpose is to be ordered around.
The way Plath presents transaction is satirical, making the poem an example of dark comedy. The situation in the poem is absurd, but it’s not far off from the way many people approached marriage during Plath’s life. This satire also calls back to thousands of years of fathers essentially selling their daughters off to a suitor for a bride price. Plath uses hyperbole to enhance the satire, especially when the speaker claims that the bride will “dissolve of sorrow” (Line 17) when the applicant dies. She is commenting on the expectation that women would remain true to their husbands even after death—the idea that the woman would have eyes and feelings for no one but her husband even though this same expectation was not necessarily expected of husbands.
The Loss of Identity in Marriage
One of Plath’s other major concerns in the poem is the way women can lose their identity within the institution of marriage. She communicates this mainly through the speaker’s use of impersonal pronouns to describe the wife. This loss starts when the speaker tells the applicant that “Here is a hand // To fill it” (Lines 10-11). The introduction of the wife is not with a name but as a body part with only one purpose: to fill a need for the applicant. The wife’s hand is “willing / To bring teacups and roll away headaches / And do whatever you tell it” (Lines 11-13). The wife’s entire introduction dehumanizes her to the role of object and defines her not by her personality but by her function to the applicant.
As the poem progresses, the speaker continually depersonalizes the wife by using the pronoun “it”: “Will you marry it? / It is guaranteed” (Lines 14-15); “It can sew, it can cook, / It can talk, talk, talk. // It works, there is nothing wrong with it” (Lines 34-36); “it’s a poultice. / […] it’s an image. / […] it’s your last resort” (Lines 37-39). The repetition of calling the wife “it” reinforces the way society viewed women when it came to marriage. A woman was not supposed to enter into a marriage because it was something she wanted; she was supposed to enter marriage to be a wife, almost like accepting a new job. At no point does the speaker ask the wife what she is looking for in a husband. There is no female applicant. There is only the male applicant, and the woman he can choose is “Naked as paper” (Line 30) and ready for him to define her.
The ultimate manifestation of the woman’s role in the poem is when the speaker calls the wife “[a] living doll” (Line 33). To Plath, it doesn’t get more dehumanizing, depersonalized, and demeaning than that.
Marriage as Commodification
The fact that Plath situates the poem within the context of a shopping transaction speaks volumes about her thematic concerns. In the world of this poem, marriage is something to apply for, shop for, and buy. There is no love in this transaction; instead, the speaker must persuade the applicant to buy a wife because she is his only option if he wishes to be deemed a man. This comes through in the way the speaker treats the applicant, using pushy rhetorical questions and inserting underhanded comments and harsh commands, like, “Stop crying” (Line 8), “your head, excuse me, is empty” (Line 26), and “My boy, it’s your last resort” (Line 39). The speaker talks down to the applicant, making him feel like he must purchase a wife in order to be worth anything.
This speaks to social conventions of the time, when society expected young men to marry, work, own a house, have children, and participate in polite society. By presenting this poem as a transaction, Plath attempts to show the way marriage is just as much a commodity as anything else.
Similar to Plath’s focus on patriarchy, Plath also shows how society commodifies women just as it commodifies anything else. Traditionally, criticism of the commodification of women includes advertising, where women are often used as sex objects to sell products to men. Here, Plath is criticizing the way society commodified women as wives whose worth as human beings is only measured in what they can provide for a man. Plath clearly demonstrates this transactive nature when the speaker says that while the wife is “[n]aked as paper to start” (Line 30), “in twenty-five years she’ll be silver, / In fifty, gold” (Lines 31-32). The speaker attempts to sell the wife as an investment, the way a buyer might think about a house.
In the end, the speaker’s pitch goes from questions and suggestions to demands. He is practically saying/shouting “buy, buy, buy” when he says, “marry it, marry it, marry it” (Line 40).
Related Titles
By Sylvia Plath
