Sylvia Plath's Fiction: A Critical Study
Luke Ferretter
Published online:
20 September 2012
Published in print:
06 July 2010
Online ISBN:
9780748671694
Print ISBN:
9780748625093
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Sylvia Plath's Fiction: A Critical Study
Luke Ferretter
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Luke Ferretter
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Published:
July 2010
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Abstract
This chapter discusses Plath's political views and her expression of these views in her fiction. After a discussion of the development of her political thought, the chapter examines Plath's conflicted representations of race in ‘The Perfect Setup’ and The Bell Jar. Her representations of the Cold War are considered next, from the story ‘Brief Encounter’ to the role of the Rosenbergs, the UN and Esther's romantic encounter with the Russian interpreter Constantin in The Bell Jar. In the novel, as in her diaries and in her Cold War collage of 1960, Plath sees American militarism and anti-Communism as against the interests of women, children and families. The chapter concludes with an examination of Plath's short stories on the racism experienced by German-Americans like her own family in the Second World War.
Keywords: politics, 'The Perfect Setup', The Bell Jar, racism, Cold War, 'Brief Encounter', Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, anti-Communism, World War II, German-Americans
Subject
Literary Studies (20th Century onwards) Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets) Literary Studies (American) Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers) Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
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