Tova Lichman

The Bare Truth: Images of Nakedness and Clothing

As the famous novelist and poet Caesare Pavese once wrote, “Love - any love - reveals us in our nakedness, our vulnerability, and our nothingness.” Pavese’s concept of nakedness plays a reoccurring theme in much of Sylvia Plath’s poetry. However, portrayal of the motif nakedness in her works gives hidden meaning and shines a new light onto the ideas associated with it. The new light is especially prevalent when compared to traditionally accepted symbols of nakedness. Plath’s poetry is a perfect example of confessional poetry. This is a style of poetry in which the author writes about their own problems and their own thoughts and feelings. Plath is able to reflect the traditional view, along with additional personal feelings and emotions through use of the symbol of nakedness. Plath’s use of the image of nakedness emphasizes her overpowering feminist views and her personal feelings about marriage.
Plath demonstrates her feminist views in the poem titled “Ariel”. In this poem, she alludes to the story of Lady Godiva. The poem reads, “White/ Godiva, I unpeel---/ Dead hands, dead stringencies”. (5-6) The legend of Lady Godiva is about young beautiful woman whose husband is the wealthy mayor of the town. He wants to impose a high and unfair tax to the residents of the town, but his wife sides with the people. Lady Godiva makes her husband an offer. She agrees that she will ride through the town naked if he will not tax the citizens. So, as the story goes, Lady Godiva decrees that all windows in the town shall be shut, sheds her clothes, and rides through the center of the town naked. This legend is a stunning example of feminist power, and of a woman sacrificing herself for the greater good of all the townspeople. Plath compares herself to the Lady Godiva because she feels that she is able to take control of her life and make a difference. In this sense, her nakedness is a form of liberation. She is freed from her bonds as a married woman, and has shed her restrictive clothes. This exemplifies both Plath’s feminist views and the negative light in which she views marriage.
Furthermore, in the poem “The Applicant”, the main theme of the poem is marriage. Plath is trying to convey the idea of marriage as a sale between a man and a woman. The speaker sounds like an auctioneer, talking hastily and advertising their product: the women for sale to be married and sold off. The poem reads, “I notice you are stark naked. / How about this suit ----/ Black and stiff, but not a bad fit” (19-21). The speaker, or salesperson, graciously offers the suit to the naked man. In this case, the suit is a symbol of the ties and bonds of marriage. Plath describes the suit as stiff. Before the man is married, he is stark naked, and has nothing. But, with marriage, the man gains a loving wife to take care of him, purchasing his suit. In this case, Plath is showing how marriage is sometimes forced and people can be forced to make rash decisions. The suit is stiff and uncomfortable, yet the salesperson still convinces the man to buy it. Later on in the poem, the man will realize the utter permanence and bondage of his decision. On line 25 the auctioneer assures him, “Believe me, they’ll burry you in it”.
Plath plays with the themes of nakedness and clothing to symbolize liberation and constriction respectively. In “Ariel”, Plath becomes Lady Godiva, a goddess of woman’s rights. She stands as a symbol for women to take action and to be free. While in the poem “The Applicant”, Plath uses nakedness to symbolize vulnerability and instability. Also using the image of clothing to represent the restrictiveness of the bonding ties of marriage. All together, images of nakedness in these works represent Plath’s feminist views and her opinions on the emphasis of the importance of marriage.
Word Count: 669