Role-Playing the “Feminine” in Letters Home

Abstract

Role-Playing the “Feminine” in Letters Home Wendy Whelan-Stewart U N I V E R S I T Y O F L O U I S I A N A A T L A F A Y E T T E Sylvia Plath’s corpus spans the gamut of genre classifications, all of which are dis¬ tinctly linked to the biographical. For instance, she is the author of not only “con¬ fessional” poetry, an autobiographical novel (a roman aclef), and short stories, but also of privately penned sketches, journals, and letters.* Three texts in particu¬ lar—none assembled for publication by Plath herself—are classified by publishers as autobiography: The Journals of Sylvia Plath, apartial collection of Plath’s jour¬ nal entries edited by Frances McCullough and prefaced vnth an introduction by TedHughes;TheUnabridgedJournalsofSylviaPlath,thecompletesetofaUof Plath’s extant journal entries; and Letters Home, aseries of personal letters written byPlathtoherfamilyyetcompiledandeditedbyhermother.Althoughreaders would be correct in understanding Sylvia Plath as the author of both the private journalsandthelettersshewrotetohermother,theywouldcommitanegregious error in assuming both works present aunified account of the writer’s life and that theLettersembodya“true,”evenhonest,SylviaPlath.AureliaSchoberPlath,who perhaps should be regarded as the true author of the text, relies on readers’under¬ standingofautobiographyasagenresothatherrepresentationofherrelationship withherdaughterwillrivaltheautobiographicalelementspresentinTheBellJar? Infact,SylviaPlath’sBellJar(publishedasfiction)andherJournalscanbereadin oppositiontoMrs.Plath’sLettersHome.Whatresultsisastrugglebetweenpubli¬ cations, all technically identified as autobiographical, to present Plath’s “real story.”Moreover,(mis)informedbyprevailingunderstandingsofautobiography, readersandMrs.PlathfailtoseethatinherlettersSylviaPlathdoesnotbearher soul or present an unadulterated glimpse into her life but instead performs for her audience (Mrs. Plath) the roles her mother wishes to see and manipulates her imagesothat,moreoftenthannot,sherepresentsanidealdaughter,student,or wife.ForPlath,stagingandperformancecannotbeseparatedfromautobiog phy in Letters Home. Fromthemomentofitsinception.LettersHomewasdesignedtoteUMrs. Plath’s story of her daughter and their relationship, rather than her daughter’s story.AfterSylviaPlath’spublicationofTheBellJarbyaBritishpressandhersub¬ sequent death in 1963, American publishers and writers began to hear of the book’s success and soon sought to publish it—despite Mrs. Plath’s strong misgiv¬ ings. In the end, however, she was forced to acquiesce to HarperCoUins and promptly came to resent their decision. In an interview from 1979 with The New York Times, Mrs. Plath not only revealed asense of injury in being identified by readersofTheBellJarasthenarrator’sdespisedmother,Mrs.Greenwood,butshe r a Intertexts ,Vo\. 12, No. 1-2 2008 ©Texas Tech University Press I N T E R T E X T S 1 3 0 also disclosed her intention to rewrite the history of her relationship with Sylvia for readers: “When ‘The Bell Jar’ came out in 1971, it became avery hard time for me,” Mrs. Plath said. “It was accepted as an autobiography, which it wasn’t. Sylvia manipu¬ lated it very skillfully. She invented, fused, imagined. She made an artistic whole that read as truth itself. That’s why Ihad to have Sylvia speak in her truest voice, which Iknow comes through in these letters.” (qtd. in Robertson) LettersHomeappearedin1975withthewords“bySylviaPlath”placedimmedi¬ ately beneath the title. No doubt, Mrs. Plath wanted to legitimize the text and to inform the reading public that it was atruer autobiography than The Bell Jar. However, one cannot help but notice that Mrs. Plath rivals her daughter for author of Letters Home. She did not, for example, print all of the letters Plath wrote home to her, but selected and rejected letters to build acoherent (and possi¬ bly idealistic) mother-daughter narrative.^ In addition, Mrs. Plath grouped the lettersintochaptersrepresentingperiodsinherdaughter’slife,andsheprovided notonlyalengthyintroductionbutalsocommentariesframingeachchapter.Her voicecarefullyattemptstoguidethereader’sinterpretationofthemother-anddaughterrelationshipthatdevelops . Despite Mrs. Plath’s attempts to control her daughter’s texts, it becomes quicklyapparentthatSylviaPlath’sletterstohermotherarenotwrittenin“her truest voice.” Rather, Sylvia seems to adopt personae when addressing her mother. Throughout the course of her letter writing, she acts out roles acceptable for the young modernAmerican woman: the boisterous, flirty young college stu¬ dent and, later, the dedicated and companionable wife. Certainly, Sylvia Plath may have studied these personae in various ladies magazines, which she fre¬ quently read and submitted poems to and which also providedAmerican woman readers with acceptable images and narratives of the idealAmerican woman. By reading Plath’s letters to her mother alongside these narratives of the ideal woman providedbymagazineslikeLadies’HomeJournal,weareabletoseejusthowPlath adopts these personae and enacts them for her mother, who assumes the role of theintelligent(thoughdeceived)Americanwomanreader.Evidently,SylviaPlath felt comfortable...