A Marxist Approach to Sylvia Plath’s Poetry: Reading "Morning Song" and "Female Author" Maureen Suncrest College

Sylvia Plath is known for being a prominent female poet of the 20th century whose work often focused on feminine aspects of life such as motherhood, as well as the challenges of being an educated, aspiring female author in the patriarchal 1960s in which female domesticity was expected. Thus, the poetry of Sylvia Plath is most commonly associated with feminist critiques that serve as negative commentary on this time period. However, the broad, at times vague, writing style of Plath also leaves room for other schools of critical theory to apply their interpretations. For example, since Plath’s work indeed focuses on her feminine role in the family unit, a Marxist interpretation can be applied. In an early work, “The German Ideology”, Marx describes the patriarchal family unit as a branch of the larger, capitalistic society. As such, the various roles within the family are “divisions among the individuals cooperating in definite kinds of labor” (Marx 654). In an additional, related essay, “Capital”, Marx describes an alleged fetishism of commodities in which the human worker is devalued in exchange for the monetary potential that is the product of his or her work. The poetry of Sylvia Plath indeed illustrates a particular division...