Comparing Atwood And The Applicant By Plath

The works of both Atwood and Plath explore the subjugation of women through a second-wave feminist lens. Both use confessional narrative; however, Plath uses her own personal experiences of feeling trapped in the home only to be a wife and a mother, while Atwood takes us to an extreme theocratic dystopia where women are only useful for their bodies, their treatment justified through a religious framework. So whereas Plath examines control over women through controversial metaphors in her poetry, Atwood is highly speculative and takes aspects of society throughout history to the modern day and reimagines them into a world that could happen.

In “The Applicant”, Plath explores the theme of marriage, and imagines it as an exclusive club or a market
Offred uses the declarative “The marriages are of course arranged” - the use of the adverb “of course” implies that these girls have had no choice in the matter and that it is an inevitability. The young daughters also show reluctance, with the use of the adverb “shyly” and verbs “crying”, “patting”, and “hand-holding” conveying resistance and fear. This also portrays a glimpse of their humanity and emotions, in contrast to “The Applicant”’s sole focus on the man and complete objectification of the woman. However our narrator, Offred, encourages them with the imperative “Just don’t move” to become objects, suggesting that this may make it easier to cope with. Both texts also explore the idea of purity, with Plath using the simile “naked as paper to start” and Atwood using the adjective “white-veiled girls”, both suggesting that unmarried (and therefore virginal) women are pure, blank, and incomplete without a
It implies that these “mannequins” are the ultimate goal for what a woman should be like through the use of the abstract noun “Perfection”, but that it comes at a price, which is infertility, and therefore their desirability and their main function as a woman, described with the adjective “terrible”. There are many references to fertility, with the use of metaphors in the noun phrases “yew trees” and “tree of life” possibly symbolising fallopian tubes, and the metaphorical concept of the moon to symbolise menstruation. Stanzas nine and ten convey a feeling that life will go on ignoring the plight of these women, with the use of the simple future tense form of the verb “will” (“Hands will be opening..”, “..broad toes will go..”) portrays a sense of inevitability, while the use of synecdoche to represent people reduces them to just their body parts and their actions, reflecting the fate of the mannequins. That these stanzas make use of the passive voice also connotes a universality of these actions; everyone will be ignoring them and their