Proceedings of the 2022 3rd International Conference on Language, Art and Cultural Exchange(ICLACE 2022)

Oppressed Women’s Voices and Female Writing in Sylvia Plath’s “Tulips” and “Daddy”

Authors
Shiyun Tang1, *, , Wanqi Zhang2, , Zehui Zhang3,
1Shenzhen College of International Education, Shenzhen, 518000, Guangdong Province, China
2Shenzhen College of International Education, Shenzhen, 518000, Guangdong Province, China
3Beijing Huijia Private School, Beijing, 102200, China

Those authors contributed equally.

*Shiyun Tang. Email: s19013.tang@stu.scie.com.cn
Corresponding Author
Shiyun Tang
Available Online 14 July 2022.
DOI
10.2991/assehr.k.220706.048How to use a DOI?
Keywords
Sylvia Plath; Hélène Cixous; The Laugh of the Medusa; Postmodern Feminism
Abstract

Twentieth-century American poet Sylvia Plath combined her social, physical and spiritual condition with a display of femininity to express her opposition to patriarchy. Her poems contain an abundance of imagery related to death. In general, many analyses of death imagery have focused more on Plath’s autobiographical trauma. In contrast, this essay applies Hélène Cixous’s theory of women’s writing to explain how the death imagery in “Daddy” and “Tulips” is a medium of opposition to patriarchy rather than an autobiographical presentation of personal trauma and vulnerability. Using an applied-theoretical approach, this essay applies the concept of feminine writing proposed by Hélène Cixous to explain how Sylvia Plath opposes patriarchy by writing about her feminine self in “Tulips” and “Daddy”. Plath ultimately achieves her protest against patriarchy by examining her weaknesses and building a new identity, which is parallel to two dimensions of Cixous’s feminine writing. This essay examines how the imagery of death in Plath’s Tulips and Daddy subverts rather than succumbs to the markers of male oppression and therefore contributes to an understanding of how Plath, as a celebrated poet of concessions, expresses her rebirth of female identity rather than merely showing autobiographical vulnerability.

Copyright
© 2022 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.
Open Access
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 2022 3rd International Conference on Language, Art and Cultural Exchange(ICLACE 2022)
Series
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research
Publication Date
14 July 2022
ISBN
10.2991/assehr.k.220706.048
ISSN
2352-5398
DOI
10.2991/assehr.k.220706.048How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2022 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.
Open Access
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license.

Cite this article

TY  - CONF
AU  - Shiyun Tang
AU  - Wanqi Zhang
AU  - Zehui Zhang
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022/07/14
TI  - Oppressed Women’s Voices and Female Writing in Sylvia Plath’s “Tulips” and “Daddy”
BT  - Proceedings of the 2022 3rd International Conference on Language, Art and Cultural Exchange(ICLACE 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 235
EP  - 239
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.220706.048
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.220706.048
ID  - Tang2022
ER  -