“Margaret Atwood makes a trenchant point about language in her novel Surfacing, where the protagonist says, ‘If you look like them and talk like them and think like them you are them, … [because] a language is everything you do’ (165). This quote suggests that if one uses the language of patriarchal society, one becomes complicit in the ideology of that society. Axelrod writes that Plath herself felt hampered by patriarchal language, and believed that ‘male poets of the canon paralyzed her creativity’ (38)… Significantly, it is when Esther attempts to read Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, that the letters seem to change, growing horns and becoming ‘fantastic, untranslatable table shapes, like Arabic or Chinese’ (120). Notably, while Esther is unable to read Joyce’s text, she can read papers which she refers to as a ‘scandal sheet, full of the local murders and suicides and beatings and robbings’ (131). Therefore, it is not simply a loss of the ability to read, but an inability to read texts that form part of the male canon that indicates Esther’s awareness that to become a female writer in a world where intellectualism and creativity belong to the male domain, she would have to use the language of men and by extension, become complicit in the ideology of male-dominated society”
de Villiers, Stephanie. “Metaphors of Madness: Sylvia Plath’s Rejection of Patriarchal Language in the Bell Jar.” null 62.2 (2019): 1-11. Web.
De Villiers, in their article “Metaphors of Madness: Sylvia Plath’s Rejection of Patriarchal Language in the Bell Jar.” uses Margaret Atwood’s text, Surfacing to forward and analyze their own interpretation of Plath’s text, The Bell Jar. De Villiers uses Atwood’s main character to implicate the loss of Esther’s— the main character in The Bell Jar— academic reading capabilities, by pointing out that complicity with patriarchy is accepted consumption by it. Next, de Villiers references Steven Gould Axelrod— the author of Plath’s biographies— and forwards his interpretation of Plath’s beliefs on the male canon as a contributor to patriarchal language in academia and in the creative realm of writing. By forwarding both Atwood and Gould, de Villiers analysis straddles the reality and parallelism of The Bell Jar as a roman a clef. The book is seen as a representation of Plath’s creative work narrating the ‘unbecoming’ of a young woman, as well as a window into Plath’s own life and trials with mental illness. De Villiers analysis of this plot point in The Bell Jar through both biographical and literary talking points is vital to the reader/researcher hoping to get a holistic picture of the text. By embracing the duality of the The Bell Jar de Villiers is then able to use textual evidence from The Bell Jar itself to uphold these points of analysis, and references Esther’s inability to read the male canon (as represented by James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake and yet ability to read ‘scandal sheets’. This point is used to validate the former quotes, regarding the male canon as a form of consumption by language— and the attribution of femininity to the ‘scandal sheets’. De Villiers writes that this is significant, because Esther wants to become a writer. So the loss of her ability to read the male canon (and write) is a sign of her recognition that she would have to engage in using language of the patriarchy in order to be successful. De Villiers accurately represents why the loss of the ability to read is, for Esther, a detrimental facet of her mental illness, as well as how it’s integral to understanding The Bell Jar’s manipulation of patriarchy as represented by the male cannon in literature. However, she does not return the outside source— Sylvia Plath herself— to continue analysis of The Bell Jar as a Roman a Clef.
I’m analyzing this text from the position of a critic, as well as a type of peer. I’m hoping to utilize this text in my own work, however I’m also using my former interpretation of the text as a forward to my interpretation. I think I’m interpreting from a critical, but close distance, I do have my own interpretation of the text that I have to consider— as well as a future interpretation of the text. For instance, I think it’s valuable to honor The Bell Jar as a piece f literature, and as a Roman a Clef, so I find that this is the basis of my interpretation. This tends to set up the larger limits of my interpretation of the text, as doing or not doing these things helps me determine whether or not the article is successfully interpreting the text.
This is the line from the excerpt that strikes me: ” ‘Significantly, it is when Esther attempts to read Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, that the letters seem to change, growing horns and becoming ‘fantastic, untranslatable table shapes, like Arabic or Chinese’ ” 120). Of all books, Finnegan’s Wake is by repute one of the least intelligible/most bewildering to a lot of readers. It’s interesting to think about its status in the 1960s versus now, in other words, what it represented then (experimentation, masculine prerogative) and how its taught or read now. I also wonder about the use of language that isn’t linear, rational, instrumental and how Plath or Atwood and Joyce would compare. Applauded in one but not the others?