The Applicant
It was first published on January 17, 1963 in The London Magazine and was later republished in 1965 in Ariel alongside poems such as "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus" two years after her death.
[1] The poem is a satirical 'interview' that comments on the meaning of marriage, condemns gender stereotypes and details the loss of identity one feels when adhering to social expectations.
The poem focuses on the role of women in a conventional marriage and Plath employs themes such as the conformity to gender norms.
It was written a few days after Sylvia Plath’s decision to divorce Ted Hughes[2] and it has been interpreted as a comment on her isolation within that relationship and the lack of power women held in her society.
“The Applicant” was composed with very satirical and condemning tones which included reprimanding the conventional way of living and the gender stereotypes that presented themselves within the public and private sphere of society.
"[8] Critic Linda Wagner-Martin comments that "The Applicant" shows Plath breaking away from the social expectations of poetry, in particular female poets, and alongside poems such as "Purdah" and "Lady Lazarus", "The Applicant" shows "the persona moving from her conventional state of social acceptance to the flourish of triumph, no matter how unconventional her behaviour has become.
"[9] Wagner-Martin criticises that Plath uses "The Applicant" as an indictment against gender norms, "this [condescending] voice insults her with regularity: an empty head, a naked body, a scenario right out of the Hallmark anniversary charts, this woman does not even merit the dignity of a feminine personal pronoun, instead, she is an “it”".
[9] Hardy also states that Plath possesses a “rationally alert intelligence” within her style of writing and the content of her poetry, particularly in poems such as "Lady Lazarus", "Daddy" and "The Applicant".
"[10] Helle continues this by commenting on how Plath "uses housewifery to normalise kitchen craziness"[10] and, alongside many other critics, notes that "The Applicant" mocks the sanctity of marriage and the gender stereotypes of a traditional marriage/household.
Gupta and Sharma have detailed "The Applicant" to be about the loss of the woman's true self as she had to give parts of herself to fix her male partner.
[11] Gupta and Sharma's interpretation of "The Applicant" is that "women are imposed, hurt, made into puppets, hollow or blank with no identities or no wills.
Plath’s ambivalence toward men, marriage, and motherhood in ["The Applicant"], and the guilt she surely felt help to explain the degree to which her poems are associated with suffering.
Her critique of the ideology of the feminine; her critical consciousness of women’s emotional, erotic and economic loyalty and their subservience to men can be shown as developing continuously.
[15] Linda Wagner-Martin states that ""Daddy" mixed the sexual with the familia, the physical with the emotional, the father with the husband in a rhythmic swirl of energised language" and it was this mixture of various opposites that exploited both the public and private spheres.
