| Summary: | The purpose of this thesis is to establish how American writer Sylvia Plath utilizes the
non-human animal image to explore gender roles and identity. Despite the
overwhelming amount of criticism that has been dedicated to Plath's writing and life,
the use of non-human animals in her work has rarely been addressed. A primary focus
will be on the violence and aggression evident in a large amount of her poetry, much
of it aligned with gender and the non-human animal image. In examining the ways in
which Plath utilizes animals, a distinction becomes apparent between the majority of
her earlier writing and her later work. In Plath's earlier work, she typically uses
animals within a triangular model, where the animal's significance is determined by
the relationship between the male and female human protagonists. As her work
develops, there is an evident shift in the role and representation of the animal images
as they begin to depart from the earlier triangular model. In Plath's later work the
animal representations are aligned closely with the identities of the female figures.
Here, animals essentially take on a mythic, prosthetic role and enable the female
figures' transcendence towards a non-victim status. Plath's shifting representations of
the non-human animal acknowledge traditional gender dichotomies, but ultimately
undermine them.
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