The Applicant

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1963

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Authorial Context: Sylvia Plath’s Life

Sylvia Plath’s biography has become almost as famous as her poetry. Much of this is because her life inspired her poetry, and she wrote candidly about her life in her poems. But the other reason is the sensational nature of many aspects of her life. Perhaps most famous, Plath experienced depression for most of her life. Near the end of her life, this depression increased and fueled most of her best poems during this intense period of writing, including “The Applicant."

There are many reasons for this time in Plath’s life being chaotic and tragic. First, she had a miscarriage in 1961, and she claimed that Ted Hughes, her husband, abused her just two days before the event. Next, Plath discovered that Hughes was having an affair with German Jewish writer Assia Wevill, and he refused to end the affair. As a result of this, Plath and Hughes separated, and Plath took her two young children to live together in a small flat.

“The Applicant” presents a negative view of marriage: Women are merely commodities that men buy and sell. The poem also takes place during the heyday of conservative social values, where women were expected to be subservient to men. This social order took off especially in the US after WWII when men returned home from the war, and women, who had supported the war effort by working in factories at home, were driven out of the workforce and into the domestic sphere. In all of her writing, Plath was critical of this social order and believed women deserved the same rights, opportunities, and freedom as men.

Literary Context: Confessional Poetry

Confessional poetry emerged during Plath’s lifetime as a new style of poetry dedicated to frank, honest portrayals of individual experiences. Confessional poets had no qualms about writing about taboo subjects, including mental health and sexuality, and they tended to blend their writing heavily with their own personal lives.

Critics consider Plath one of the leading Confessional poets of her time, along with writers like Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, John Berryman, and even writers like those who were part of the Beat Generation, especially the poet Allen Ginsberg. Plath actually took writing classes with Sexton under the tutelage of Lowell, whose 1959 Life Studies is often touted as one of the most important works of the movement.

While these poets didn’t necessarily name their movement or work with one another to create this new style of poetry, their coming of age during the 1950s and early 1960s is no coincidence. Much of Confessional poetry responds to the social issues of the day, including the existentialist threat of nuclear war and the destructive, conforming nature of post-WWII American capitalism and consumerism. Additionally, the late-1950s saw the expansion of movements like the civil rights movement, which would expand to other 1960s movements like the gay liberation movement and the women’s liberation movement. These poets worked in the years just before the radical nature of the mid-to-late 1960s kicked off, helping to set the stage for the expansive change that was to come.