The Literature I’ve been reading in the COVID-19 Lockdown

How my independent reading is connected with a text we’ve studied in terms of attention to a global issue.

In this extended lockdown, I’ve read a lot of books (just for self-entertainment) and lots of poems for my IB English class as I enjoy poems compared to classic literature now. One poem that I enjoyed immensely is “The Applicant” by Sylvia Plath. I have been looking into the Canongate Myth Series, Carol Ann Duffy’s work, Anne Sexton’s – Cinderella, and many more but the applicant truly caught my attention.

It speaks about a very present issue in today’s society but also from the 1980’s – inequality. It also reminds me of some ideas from “The Importance of Being Earnest” where the female characters are described as ditzy and subservient. The poem is about a male who goes for an interview and is asked what he can offer them when “something” is missing and that something is a wife.

• Stitches to show something’s missing? No, no? Then
  How can we give you a thing?

The employer describes the wife like an accessory a male needs when he talks about all she “offers”.

• To bring teacups and roll away headaches
  And do whatever you tell it.
  Will you marry it?
  It is guaranteed

The employer also refers to a wife, a female as “it”. The pronoun shows an obvious disrespect to the female and also makes her appear as an object instead of a human being. The employer calls for a woman to come and present herself to the applicant.

• I have the ticket for that.
  Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
  Well, what do you think of that?
  Naked as paper to start

The employer also refers to the female as “that” with the obvious disrespect that flows throughout the poem in regards to the female. He refers to a potential wife as a ticket to getting a job and refers to her as naked, as in like a blank slate where the male can manipulate her into anything he wants her to be for him.

The disrespectful terms for females runs though the next stanza where he refers to the female as a “living doll” further cementing the fact that the male can “play” with her as he likes. He refers to their future marriage years as silver and gold. He further undermines the value of a female by listing frivolous things he thinks she only has to offerlike sewing, cooking and talking endlessly.

• But in twenty-five years she’ll be silver,
  In fifty, gold.
  A living doll, everywhere you look.
  It can sew, it can cook,
  It can talk, talk, talk.

The employer ends the monologue by saying that marriage is the only option left for the applicant to ever be successful. The employer says “will you marry it” but it’s not a question, but a statement.

• My boy, it’s your last resort.
  Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.

The females in the importance of being earnest are regarded as silly and frivolous while choosing a potential husband based on a name and falling in love with a name rather than an actual person making females seem naive and dumb. The trope of the dumb trophy wife is exemplified here.