Of Mirrors and Bell Jars. Heterotopia and Liminal Spaces as Reconfigurations of Female Identity in Sylvia Plath

Carmen Bonasera

doi:10.3390/h8010020

Abstract

The poetry of Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) has received a considerable number of critical responses, among which spatial analysis occupies a minor position, although her texts explore complex relationships between subject and context. Drawing from a threefold theoretical apparatus (Bachelard’s theory of the poetic space, the Foucauldian concept of heterotopia, and the trope of liminality), this article focuses on the analysis of Plath’s increasing use of in-between spaces and objects of transition and transformations (mirrors, thresholds, windows), as well as on her predilection for heterotopic and alienating sceneries (hospital rooms, cemeteries), in both her poetry and prose. The study first acknowledges Plath’s choice of spatial imagery as a progressive orientation towards transitional states and places of otherness and ambivalence. Then, it highlights the specific role of heterotopic and liminal spaces in the process of reconfiguration of female identity. Given the impossibility for the female subject to rely on imprisoning domestic spheres to suture the edges of her fragmented self, reconceptualization of her own consciousness only becomes possible in the movement across a threshold. The analysis finally determines that the poetic evocation of spaces of conflict and difference paradoxically contributes to the shaping of female identity.

Highlights

Critical Perspectives on Sylvia PlathSince her death in 1963, the work of American poet Sylvia Plath (Boston, 1932–London, 1963)has been subject to a considerable number of critical interpretations: biographies, feminist studies, psychoanalytic investigations, stylistic and thematic criticism, and so on.1 Despite having published in her lifetime only one collection of poems, The Colossus (1960), and one novel, The Bell Jar (1963), the posthumous publication and critical acclaim of the poems in Ariel (1965) and of her letters and journals have established Plath among the most influential writers of her age
Delving into the spatial imagery of Plath’s poetry and prose, while integrating geocritical theories with feminist approaches, this study aims at proving that heterotopic and liminal spaces play a significant role in the process of building modern female poetic identity
The concept of the subject’s imprisonment in a domestic setting evokes Foucault’s theory of heterotopia, i.e., those places that exist in society and relate to other surrounding places but act as counter-sites in which other real sites are simultaneously represented and inverted

Summary

Introduction

Since her death in 1963, the work of American poet Sylvia Plath (Boston, 1932–London, 1963). Third-wave feminists were eager to challenge the second wave’s essentialist definitions of femininity, which, for example, did not account for racial minorities; they promoted the intersection between feminist and postcolonial claims that women’s spatial confinement to domestic spheres informs the making (and unmaking) of their identity, while literary theorist Shands (1999) maintains that feminist critical practice aims at deconstructing boundaries to extend women’s power and strives to subvert the concept of fixed space, in order to give rise to more fluid conceptions These theories raise questions of liminality while problematizing the porous space in-between social and individual categories and concepts. Her complex work epitomizes the deep interconnection of otherness and liminality with women’s writing, providing both a representation of the female condition and a resolution to their sense of contradiction and fragmentation, which was due to an inherently ambiguous sociohistorical context

Spaces in Sylvia Plath: A Thematic Analysis

Impossibility of Topophilia in Domestic Settings

Pervasiveness of Heterotopic Settings in Plath’s Poetry and Prose

Through the Looking Glass

Negotiating Female Spaces