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Personification
Definition of Satire
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of satire, but satirists can take... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians... read full definition
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—The Fashion Industry :
In her depiction of Ladies' Day magazine, Plath satirizes what she considers to be the superficiality of fashion magazines and the fashion industry. Describing how she ended up working for Ladies' Day in New York City, Esther notes that:
We had all won a fashion magazine contest, by writing essays and stories and poems and fashion blurbs, and as prizes they gave us jobs in New York for a month, expenses paid, and piles and piles of free bonuses, like ballet tickets and passes to fashion shows and hair stylings at a famous expensive salon and chances to meet successful people in the field of our desire and advice about what to do with our particular complexions. I still have the makeup kit they gave me [...] and three lipsticks ranging from red to pink [...]
Here, Esther emphasizes what she considers to be the privilege and superficiality of those who work in the fashion magazine business. The winners of the contest, young women who submitted “essays and stories and poems and fashion blurbs,” are treated to both meetings with “successful people in our field of desire,” as well as “advice about what to do with our particular complexions.” Esther’s own serious literary interests are contrasted with the magazine’s focus on fashion and appearances, and Esther, who wishes to become a scholar or a writer, is gifted a large amount of free make-up and other toiletries that she makes little use of.
Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Mrs. Guinea:
Plath gently satirizes popular literature in her depiction of Mrs. Philomena Guinea, a successful novelist who serves as a benefactor for Esther throughout the novel. Reflecting on Guinea’s writing, Esther notes that:
I had read one of Mrs. Guinea’s books in the town library—the college library didn’t stock them for some reason—and it was crammed from beginning to end with long, suspenseful questions: “Would Evelyn discern that Gladys knew Roger in her past? wondered Hector feverishly” and “How could Donald marry her when he learned of the child Elsie, hidden away with Mrs. Rollmop on the secluded country farm? Griselda demanded of her bleak, moonlit pillow.” These books earned Philomena Guinea, who later told me she had been very stupid at college, millions and millions of dollars.
Esther notes a certain melodramatic tendency in Mrs. Guinea’s books, which are “crammed from beginning to end with long, suspenseful questions.” Here, Plath gently satirizes the dramatic and “suspenseful” tone of popular literature through these parodic quotations. Plath’s own writing, as evidenced in The Bell Jar, generally eschews this over-embellished style, attempting instead to capture the rhythms of thought and mental activity. Mrs. Guinea, Esther notes bluntly, has made “millions and millions of dollars” from her work despite not having been a particularly bright student while at college, implying that the public prefers literature of dubious artistic quality.
