Analysis of the Death in Ariel from the Perspective of Pastiche

Abstract

As the posthumous work of Sylvia Plath, the American confessional poetess, Ariel plays an important role in the study of Plath's poetry creation, and death, as the most common theme in Plath's poetry, has been criticized and studied by many scholars. Yet people focus more on what caused Plath to write about the subject. Few studies have explored how Plath wrote about death. Based on Jameson's theory of pastiche, this paper discusses Plath's use of pastiche, the contribution pastiche made to the description of the theme of death and Plath's view of death. Pastiche breaks the limits of time, space and ideology in a retro way enabling Plath to construct "facts" from her vague memories and allowed her to express more freely her views on death, namely art, self-defense and redemption. Hope this paper could enrich people's understanding of pastiche theory and of the role pastiche plays in the postmodern theories.