Analysis of The Applicant by Sylvia Plath

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart—
It really goes.---Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath

 The Applicant 

           by Sylvia Plath

First, are you our sort of a person?

Do you wear

A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,

A brace or a hook,

Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch,

Stitches to show something's missing? No, no? Then

How can we give you a thing?

Stop crying.

Open your hand.

Empty? Empty. Here is a hand

To fill it and willing

To bring teacups and roll away headaches

And do whatever you tell it.

Will you marry it?

It is guaranteed

To thumb shut your eyes at the end

And dissolve of sorrow.

We make new stock from the salt.

I notice you are stark naked.

How about this suit——

Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.

Will you marry it?

It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof

Against fire and bombs through the roof.

Believe me, they'll bury you in it.

Now your head, excuse me, is empty.

I have the ticket for that.

Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.

Well, what do you think of that?

Naked as paper to start

But in twenty-five years she'll be silver,

In fifty, gold.

A living doll, everywhere you look.

It can sew, it can cook,

It can talk, talk, talk.

It works, there is nothing wrong with it.

You have a hole, it's a poultice.

You have an eye, it's an image.

My boy, it's your last resort.

Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.

Personal Perspective: 

I enjoy poetry. A lot of people like to waste time looking for themselves in poetry as though to fill a missing piece of themselves by some pretend comraderie in place of a fully functional brain. 

A friend is something that either is or isn't. No sense in wasting time in figuring out what one's status is with someone else that can be better spent living a good life. 

That's what a cuckhold is. It's a person who was shown to value the opinion of themselves by how obedient they are to their spouse. When a spouse cheats on them they reveal themselves to be human and the foolishness of obeying someone just as human as themselves. 

In the myth of Diana the huntress she turned a man into a deer so that he could be hunted just as he had hunted deer. But it wasn't punishment for hunting deer. It was for seeing her naked and proving that she was human and not divine. 

That knowledge would have prevented her from using and abusing men any longer, and revealed her motives to be base and mundane. 

I read an article of Ted Hughes who had a personal review of the Colossus. He revealed that she was in touch with a Ouji board that revealed that Sylvia Plath was talking to an entity who called himself "The Colossus." 

For those who pathologized her journey by making her art about her sexuality or about her father wounds, this would refute the selfish motives behind those self-deceptive interpretations. 

That's also what a cuckhold is. It's a man or a woman who refuses to see the person they love as a person with their own will that deserves respect and only views them as an object meant to make them feel good. 

The symptom for that sickness is self deception. The cure is that she should either cheat on you or leave you or separate from you. A broken heart lets light and discernment in. 

That demonstrates that people who worship the opposite sex or their spouse tend to treat those they love like addiction objects. That's why I don't want to be worshiped. I sure as hell don't want to be a pleasure object forever. (Perhaps that's the point of pornography. It allows men to discover that sexuality isn't sacred, and that worship is just selfish objectification for personal convenience. Porn also presents sex waste that allows for safe study of sex in abundance for rapid growth without breaking up any homes, as long as only adults are involved. Personally I avoid as much fetish porn as possible and tend to choose porn that activates my oxytocin bonding quality. Astral bonding allows for freedom and happiness without a sense of associating happiness with owning any one person, because a porn actress is obviously a separate person that has no direct relationship with me or anyone else watching the video.)

A muse might be considered the same thing. If one presumes that I have an attachment to Sylvia Plath without any real world connection, then she's obviously just a muse for me for never ending artistic inspiration. It takes real world relationship skills courage and history to make a partner.

The skills more likely absent when writing or reading poetry. That's the skill of ambition. I experience love when I read her poetry, but that's a love response that I associate with her value to me without attaching it to her as a person. 

But a lonely woman on the artistic side might have a hard time understanding the difference between someone who loves them and someone who admires them. 

I can say I love her, but I can't love someone who doesn't allow themselves to be loved. But if she's just an object of nature like everything else is, then my admiration for her translates into admiration for Nature herself that allows me to build a personal world that I admire and feel is beautiful!

A lonely woman might not know the difference if she gave up on building a beautiful life for herself, even if a man both loves and admires her but respects her so as to only vibrate with admiration until she can tell the difference.

There are several good ideas in here based on my personal experience. If I kept my perspective to myself and assumed that she should "just know," and for those who don't know me I believe she never truly died or if she did she rose from the dead like Jesus in a very literal Lady Lazarus way, then I would be keeping the other side of matching DNA experience from her view for selfish reasons of solitude and pride and leverage childishness which I just detected in my heart just now. (It was the thought form, "if I keep what she needs to myself then she'll have no choice but to see me in real life." Being aware of that allows me to let go of that motive and not judge myself for that. I strive to be honest and loving and free in all things. Leverage is only to survive and escape personal bondage, and isn't for holding someone else hostage to make them provide me with companionship. That wouldn't be right.) 

God told me that I was Cleopatra in my past life. And that I proved as Cleopatra that spirituality is just as political as common sense. That was why Gaius Octavian Augustus Caesar defeated me in my past life. The proof of my past life is that I was born with my sexual wisdom still intact that used being a bad kid to keep sexual energy out. And when I fell I had the wisdom to ask for perfect social skills to align with perfect advice in everyone, as  all advice would be compelled to give me honest advice as a result. 

As per the advice I looked into the past before I read that Ted Hughes article and I instructed the spirits to not reveal who I am and to call me The Colossus. I predicted their selfishness and greed would agree to that and make them feel like they were more special to me than she was. Their obedience would have been sincere that would have protected  them from hell and not be pretentious. 

God told me that in special circumstances portals to the future can be found this way. The survival of the universe being more important than common sense as the highest common sense possible, which is the preservation of everyone. 

She found her way, and validated my wisdom as Cleopatra. Her lack of passion and her abundance of intelligent grace being proof of her identity as Gaius Octavian Augustus Caesar. 

In a previous life she was the Goddess Diana. But I advised she not identify as a goddess in her heart but to empathize with her extreme dissociative identity as the political genius of Augustus that would give her the clarity and responsibility to be out in the clear view in the extreme and to be capable of making heartbreaking decisions to be able to leave hard relationships that would have betrayed her people. 

She left the wisdom of Diana to me. 

There are other empty spaces where she can figure the rest out for herself. 

Let's just say that I proved that spiritual inheritance can be earned as inspired by the movie "The Shawshank Redemption."

Tim Robbins: If you want to keep all that money give it to your wife. The IRS allows a one time tax free gift from one spouse to another.

Guard: Bullshit! Tax free!

Tim Robbins: Tax free! The IRS can't touch one cent!

Guard: You're that smart banker that killed his wife aren't ya. Why should I believe a smart banker like you. So I could end up in here with ya!

Tim Robbins: It's perfectly legal go ask the IRS they'll say the same thing. Actually I feel stupid telling you this. I'm sure you would have investigated the matter yourself! 

;)

And for the record I didn't discuss my past history to feel important. Some wisdom can only be revealed by a direct link with one's true self. Given my personal history I'm both proud of that truth about me but embarrassed to mention it, given that self-importance would be a way to imprison one's self. I trust that my loving energy is obvious, and for those willing to understand the wisdom would validate itself and be self confirming.

This turned into something long. I'm going to have to do a two parter so as to make the poetry analysis stand on it's own. 

Just as an aside I had a replicated poetry rejection at JSU that she experienced in the movie Sylvia. Not the same feeling but showed an interesting pathway. (That's the fallacy to appeal to having a "common story" appeal. A common feeling doesn't necessarily mean a common struggle. A common struggle doesn't necessarily mean a common interest. Successful negotiation is the core of any true intimacy. Respect is more true than empathy. Respect is first. Empathy is second. Much of this seemed obvious to me so sometimes I've made the assumption that it should be obvious to others. And there's some truth to that.  It would be foolish to go out of my way to educate people who don't want to be educated. Eventually I found that the tension of the universe patiently disagreed. But it's better to be proven wrong by nature than to be fooled by a person.)

The real world is better than being praised as a great poet. She experienced a pathway too. Ariel is proof of that. The world I lived in was also a prison even though it had real common sense freedom. I needed a pathway. That experience kept my priorities straight. 

I also had a different experience today that was less dark and more optomistic proving that an original structure can change shape and become something organic and more positive while still maintaining it's original benefit. 

I bought my roommate ice cream. I went to the store and said if he bought me coffee then we could call it even. He didn't mind. It costed less than the ice cream. The store didn't have it. 

I was originally stubborn and head strong and considered walking to the gas station out of spite. 

But I didn't.  I instead went to the car and sat in my seat to care for the dog there. 

As a consequence  I had the inspiration to hold the dog to the gas station, she's a small cat sized dog, and see if she would let me buy some coffee and bring the dog inside. She did and she talked about all her dogs and how much she loves them. One she had for 7 years and the other for longer than that. 

That was a wonderful experience that was better than what anyone could give me and it made it so that it didn't matter what anyone owed me. 

Life is bigger than that. 

That's the beauty of common sense and accepting the free will of others. I get to enjoy life as something new and beautiful every day that can provide me new friendships and perhaps bring new life to old friendships.