Assessing Sylvia Plath’s Poetry, by Jessica Fernquist
Women or Fungi?
Sylvia Plath's strong feministic views can be found in many of her works; "Mushrooms" seems to be overlooked as a manifestation of this, possibly due to the subtlety in her use of metaphors. Persistent struggle is a central theme overall in this poem but Plath's word choices clearly narrow the minority down to women. Written in 1960, "Mushrooms" is a striking social commentary on the struggles of women to overcome the restraints of the housewife image. Plath parallels a mushroom's growth, determination, and population expansion with women's fight for notability, independence, and as she sees it, inevitable control of the majority. By using a metaphor likening mushrooms to women, an idea which is not so far-fetched, she bites back at male dominance and with brutal honesty displays the real position of women in society. Plath herself was torn on this subject however; she had witnessed the impact of gender discrimination yet strived to be the immaculate loving wife and mother.
The link between a mushroom and a woman of the 1950's is not hard to establish. Women were still second class citizens and subject to their husband's opinions and decisions. Plath writes "Our toes, our noses / Take hold of the loam, / acquire the air" (line 5); toes and noses are human-like descriptions and also dainty body parts often thought of as womanly. Loam is a mixture of sand, clay, and straw often used to make bricks; much like the mushroom, women sprout out of the manure of their social position. The fact that they must acquire air is a sign that it is not a given; such a basic necessity for life has to be sought after, illustrating the diminished status of women. Further feminine descriptions can be found throughout the poem; "Soft fists insist on / Heaving the needles, / The leafy bedding, / Even the paving" (line 10). Soft skin and physical weakness are also characteristics associated with women and perceived as traits that make women inferior to men. Plath is still pointing out the importance of persistence. Women are gaining ground; they are pushing through obstacles slowly and laboriously, but still pushing.
Mushrooms grow and thrive because of their natural determination to overcome obstacles; likewise Plath insists women's persistence is their greatest weapon. Plath writes, "Our hammers, our rams, / Earless and eyeless, / Perfectly voiceless, / widen the crannies, Shoulder through the holes" (line 15). Hammers and rams are certainly powerfu to breakdown barriers with persistence. While women had limited knowledge and effect on political and social decisions that impacted everyone, their painstaking efforts were expanding their influence and progressing their status. Forcing themselves forward was the only way women could gain acceptance. With jabbing sarcasm Plath writes, "Nudgers and shovers/ In spite of ourselves. /Our kind multiplies" (line 28). Women are strong and can even be violent despite men's conceptions of their shortcomings and weaknesses. There is smugness evident in her diction; if women are so powerless why are they expanding? Women's steadfastness is what will break them through the barriers of male dominance and allow them independence.
Issues of domesticity are frequent in "Mushrooms"; "We are shelves, we are/ Tables, we are meek" (line 25). These are utilitarian descriptions representing a woman's place in the home as a silent and timid necessity. Meekness is recurrent throughout the poem; "Diet on water, / On crumbs of shadow, / Bland-mannered, asking / Little or nothing" (line 20). Water is a meager form of sustenance to diet on, such starvation shows a struggle for a pleasing image. Living in the shadow of their husband's opinions and desires, women rarely expressed any ideas of their own that might have disagreed. Thus being bland-mannered and submissive, women conformed as was expected of them without expecting to be treated as an equal human being.
Plath documents how the impending assertion of women into the professional world was trivial to the all-powerful man. Countless women began examining their lives from a new perspective; "So many of us! / So many of us!" (line 23). Despite the increase of women taking part in the movement men still failed to take them seriously. Plath writes, "Nobody sees us, / Stops us, betrays us" (line 10). Men's demeaning perspective of a woman's potential actually works to their advantage; there is no need to stop a fragile woman from doing something she is not capable of.
The theme of meekness climaxes in the last stanza of "Mushrooms" transforming into an empowering prophecy. Plath writes, "We shall by morning / Inherit the earth. / Our foot's in the door" (line 30). Once women emerge from the despair of their darkness, they will have the majority. The first step is already accomplished; women do hold certain legal rights, now it is a matter of gaining independence and breaking away from the housewife stereotype.
Sylvia Plath had conflicted feelings on domesticity; she felt compelled to fulfill the expectations of a married woman and mother yet she also passionately believed women were competent and deserved the right to break free of their domestic restrictions and pursue careers. Plath grew up with an independent female role-model, her mother. When she was eight years old her father died, thus she observed the difficulties a single mother must contend with in a male driven society. Devoney Looser writes, "After Otto's death, Aurelia taught secretarial skills and struggled to raise her daughter Sylvia and her younger son Warren" (Looser, "Sylvia Plath: Overview"). Sylvia Plath married the famous poet Ted Hughes and had two children, and so began her attempts at being the perfect housewife while maintaining her career as a writer. Marsha Bryant wrote of her eagerness to please her new husband; "Writing her mother from Cambridge, Plath declares that she will transform her kitchen into "an ad out of House and Gardens with Ted's help" hardly the bohemian image we expect" (Bryant, "Plath, Domesticity, and the Art of Advertising"18), Such a statement in her own words proves Plath's desire to conform to societal norms which directly conflicts with being a successful female writer.
Plath's feministic tendencies are evident in many other pieces, especially her most famous works. In "The Poetics of Torture: The Spectacle of Sylvia Plath's Poetry" Lisa Narbeshuber writes, "Most criticism reads "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus" around the psychology of Plath's life, if not exclusively as a biography, then as the feminist struggles of a victorious woman over man" (Narbeshuber,186). Devoney Looser acknowledges Plath's views in further works; Plath's "loosely autobiographical novel" The Bell Jar "has its moment of feminist impulse and insight" (Looser). Feminism is such an obvious reading in the bulk of Plath's work it is surprising that "Mushrooms" isn't critiqued in the same manner.
Sylvia Plath's writing is typically associated with images of death and suicide; however her works reflect much more meaningful and socially relevant ideas. Plath was very opinionated on women's rights as is evident from critical readings of her most famous works. Her poem "Mushrooms" is overlooked in this respect, despite the obvious link of mushrooms to women. Even while internally struggling with her own domestic impulses, Plath still expressed her ideals of women's right to independence. Men may think they are superior to women, but that will not stop women from soldiering through such oppression and taking control of their ambitions.