The Applicant

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1963

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Repetition

“The Applicant” makes heavy use of repetition with words and phrases. The repetition serves several purposes throughout the poem, depending on where Plath uses it.

The first purpose of the repetition is to provide a strong voice to the speaker. The speaker is a pushy salesperson, and his language reflects that. He constantly repeats rhetorical questions (Lines 1, 6, 7, 10, 14, 22, 29). The use of rhetorical questions is a common sales tactic. The point of a rhetorical question is to prove a point by asking a question that the audience knows the answer to. For example, in Line 29, after having the wife emerge from the closet naked, the speaker asks, “Well, what do you think of that?” The speaker has just spent the first half of the poem setting up the applicant’s need for a wife, and then he provides him with the exact thing he says the applicant needs. The question, then, is not meant to be answered but to serve as a confirmation of the applicant’s internal thoughts upon seeing the “thing” (Line 7) the speaker has just told him that he lacks and needs. This is a similar tactic to earlier in the poem, when the speaker asks what the applicant lacks and then has him hold out an empty hand that the wife’s hand can fill.

Additionally, Plath uses repetition to present the theme of the dehumanization of women in a patriarchal society. For example, the speaker refers to the wife as “it” 17 times while only using the pronoun “she” once. The repetition of “it” is designed to grow more and more uncomfortable as readers come to understand exactly what the speaker is selling. By repeating the word, Plath demonstrates just how powerful and demeaning dehumanization is.

Point of View

Plath writes “The Applicant” from the salesperson’s point of view. The use of a different point of view from her own is unusual in Plath’s poetry. As a Confessional poet, most of her work is from her own perspective and focuses on deeply personal imagery and thoughts. This poem, though, is from the perspective of someone else; specifically, it’s from the perspective of a man.

The use of a male point of view is important because it allows Plath to deliver sarcasm and satire in a strong way. The male speaker spouts his misogyny in such a matter-of-fact way that it quickly becomes uncomfortable to read and disgusting to think about. This approach makes the poem feel more like a mirror than a soapbox. Plath presents the poem more like an observer than as someone who is actively being victimized by the thing she is writing about. This makes the criticism more subtle and clever than if she were to just write about her own feelings as someone who feels subjugated. In many ways, sarcastic, satirical criticism is more effective than first-person pathos, and this poem is no exception.

Additionally, by using a man’s voice and not writing from the perspective of the wife, Plath better demonstrates the invisibility and silence patriarchy restricts women to. If the poem were from her own perspective and written in the first-person, it would lose the sharp critical voice and subtle accusatory bite that the second-person perspective allows. It’s important to remember that one of the first lines in the poem includes “you,” which serves as a way to include readers. By situating the poem in this perspective, Plath dares readers to ask themselves whether they contribute to this dystopian system that the poem describes.

Form and Meter

“The Applicant,” like many of Plath’s poems, is a free-verse, unrhymed poem. However, the poem does have some structural elements. For one, each stanza contains five lines, and most of the lines contain examples of internal rhyme, parallelism, or rhythmic cadences. The first stanza demonstrates some of these elements with the listing of items in Lines 3-5 and consonance with word pairs like “crutch”/“crotch” (Lines 3 and 5) and “brace”/“breasts” (Lines 4 and 5).

The second stanza continues these structures and patterns, including the internal rhyme and alliteration in Line 6 and the internal assonance of “thing”/“empty”/“crying”/“something’s” (Lines 6, 7, 8, and 10).

The rest of the poem uses various devices, especially the repetition of internal rhyme. Stanza 5 is the best example as Plath rhymes “stiff”/“fit”/“it” (Lines 21 and 22) and repeats/puns on the word “proof” (Line 23) while also rhyming it with “roof” (Line 24).

Finally, Plath has some moments of metrical repetition and parallelism, such as near the end of the poem when she writes, “It can sew, it can cook, / It can talk, talk, talk” (Lines 34-35), “You have a hole, it’s a poultice. / You have an eye, it’s an image” (Lines 37-38), and “Will you marry it, marry it, marry it” (Line 40). These repeating metrical patterns add more rhetorical flair to the speaker’s sales pitch while also highlighting the repetitive, structured existence the wife is expected to embrace.