“The idea of being electrocuted makes me sick, and that’s all there was to read about in the papers—goggle-eyed headlines staring up at me on every street corner and at the fusty, peanut-smelling mouth of every subway. It had nothing to do with me, but I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves.
I thought it must be the worst thing in the world.
New York was bad enough. By nine in the morning the fake, country wet freshness that somehow seeped in overnight evaporated like the trail end of a dream. Mirage-gray at the bottom of their granite canyons, the hot streets wavered in the sun, the car tops sizzled and glittered, and the dry, cindery dust blew into my eyes and down my throat”(1).
Right from the start, Plath throws the reader into the world of Esther Greenwood. A world full of dark, unnatural, and bland feeling, swallowed by the city itself, and then regurgitated by some evil to make you live the same boring life over again. The author does an exquisite job in inflicting a depressed mood on the reader through her musty diction describing the inhumanness of the city and how it is “hot” and “sizzle[ing]”. Plath shows the detachment of humans from death, especially by electrocution, by comparing the hot temperature of the city to the way someone’s nerves are burned by the electrical current. The reader comes to understand the message Sylvia is trying to put across and show the irony of the whole situation.
Plath also uses elevated diction to describe the complicated intrinsic battles Esther is struggling with. When the author utilizes such words as “promptitude” and “insinuating” it suggests that Esther is a more educated member of society, and thus is in her right mind to go insane. Esther goes on to say that she feels like the “eye of a tornado… moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo” (3). In this statement, it is clear that Esther feels she is not meant for her surroundings and also that she foresees destruction in the future, not only to herself, but to her loved ones as well. Plath’s use of jargon in this instance shows how she wishes to persuade the reader that Esther is not the one going crazy, but the world around her is actually ill.
The paragraph that you choose was very enlightening for the way that the entire book was written. Plath does choose very explicit words when describing the city and Esther's view on electrocution as to get the reader to be able to see into Esther's mind and her view of the dull world around her. I liked how yo connected the object of a city to humans and how that makes them too seem as if they are objects, which is how it seems Esther views her companions and peers surrounding her.
ReplyDeleteI saw her high diction interlaced into Esther's thoughts as showing her elevated position in society and her level of education, as you mentioned, but also as a way for Esther to look down on society. The diction that Plath uses that seems to be Esther's own words is higher then everyday common people so it brings the dull people that Esther sees even farther down in her view of them. This also helps Esther's own view that the world around her is the crazy ones, instead of she, which was a very good observation by you.