“Spinster”: Unlovable Imperialism

Pictured: French police attack Algerian protesters in Paris, 1956
The image of the spinster was a popular one in the movies during the 1940s and ‘50s, and the character was often pictured pining over a dead soldier boyfriend whose picture was on the mantel. In 1942, Bette Davis had starred as spinster Charlotte Vale in the film adaptation of Olive Higgins Prouty’s Now, Voyager, a book Plath owned, and a popular movie she surely saw, as Prouty was her benefactor at Smith College. By this year, the famous Hollywood star Katherine Hepburn had played a spinster in three starring roles: The African Queen (1951); Summertime, released as “Summer Madness” in the UK (1955); and The Rainmaker (1956). 
Plath’s language in her poem “Spinster” reveals there is more to this work than just a story of a particular woman (CP, 49). With words such as “mutinous,” “treason,” “vulgar motley” and “bedlam,” alongside the month of “April” and Cold War-ish wintery images has Plath casting the country of France as the unloving and unlovable spinster during the Algerian war. 
In April 1956, Plath was in Paris. There, she mourned over Richard Sassoon, reeled from Ted Hughes, and passed the time with her old boyfriend Gordon Lameyer and two other gentlemen, one being a political journalist. In her confusion and seeming inability to find love and settle down, Plath may have likened herself to be a spinster. Meanwhile, as she was in the capitol of France, she surely was aware that the Algerian protests against France were increasing (“April walk”). The National Liberation Front (FLA) sought Soviet support (“longed for winter”) during this Cold War era, but the Soviets were ambivalent. The French public relations’ campaign denied that this was war and pitched their actions as bringing enlightenment and values to a backward culture. In truth this was a dirty war of village burnings, torture and executions that was all in the news that “bedlam spring.” A group of priests had published letters by French reservists revealing the truth and the reservists began a rebellion (“vulgar motley”), refusing to fight for their country (“a treason not to be borne”).  It was a messy, simultaneous and escalating fight (“burgeoning”) of French reservists against their own country; and a civil war of loyal French Algerian settlers against the FLA; and of course, France against the FLA. 
The “barricade of barb and check” references the Berber languages of North Africa, and “check” is a homophone for “Czech.” Unlike the Czechs in 1938, the Algerian settlers were not going to be manipulated by the FLN. Many tens of thousands of Muslim civilians were killed, abducted, and/or presumed killed by the FLN during the Algerian war. A new administrative structure was proposed that would give Algeria some autonomy while still being governed by France, by dividing Algeria into five districts (“her five queenly wits”). In 1956, after a series of highly publicized massacres, the French abolished the idea of reform (“She withdrew neatly”).
ALGERIA, ALGERIAN PROTESTS, ALGERIAN WAR, COLD WAR, EARLY POEM, FRANCE, GORDON LAMEYER, IMPERIALISM, KATHERINE HEPBURN, MASSACRES, NATIONAL LIBERATION FRONT, NOW, OLIVE HIGGINS PROUTY, PLATH POEM, PROTESTS, REFORM, RICHARD SASSOON, SOVIET, SPINSTER, SUMMER MADNESS, SUMMERTIME, SYLVIA PLATH, TED HUGHES, THE AFRICAN QUEEN, THE RAINMAKER, VOYAGER