THE ROLE OF QUEEN BEE IN SUSTAINING SELF-IDENTITY: A FEMINIST STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF SYLVIA PLATH’S CONFESSIONAL BEE POEMS

Abstract

This study examines confessional “Bee Poems” (3-9 October 1962), written by the American writer, poet, and modern woman, Sylvia Plath. Bee Poems, five in number, are selected texts from Plath’s collection of poems, Ariel (1965), such as “The Bee Meeting”, “The Arrival of the Bee Box”, “Stings”, “The Swarm”, and “Wintering”. To analyze confessions of self-identity by depicting the stereotypical role of queen bee, this paper uses Sara Mills’ Model Feminist Stylistics (1995) as a theoretical framework. The Bee Poems are analyzed at the discourse level with focus on one of its features, ‘Characterization’. The qualitative research method is used with McKee’s (2003) textual analysis based on close reading of the selected texts. This study argues that the pressure of patriarchal forces remains dominant in the life of a poet who identifies with the speaker of the Bee sequence poems and witnesses her struggles to sustain herself as a woman of identity. The male-dominancy suffocates her existence in a way that her life gets changed drastically, especially when she is cheated by her infidel husband, by being involved in an extramarital affair with Assia Wevill. This study concludes that in Bee poems, Plath, disguised in the role of a queen bee, confesses domesticity, sexuality, vulnerability, and finally suicidal thoughts, resulting in the successful suicide attempt as the extreme state of her mind that she finally chooses for herself as the only way out to freedom.