 Plath wrote in her journals that “Strumpet Song” was written shortly after meeting Hughes (UJ, 410). It is a literary treatment of time in the metaphor of a whore (CP, 33). Plath’s first encounter with Hughes, when he kissed her “bang smash on the mouth” at a party and she bit his cheek (UJ, 212), seems a good match for “that mouth / Made to do violence on.” Hughes’ “seamed face” and Plath’s casting him as incomparable with another man well fits this poem. Hughes was with a different girl that night he met Plath.
But Plath’s work was beyond mere autobiography by now: “Strumpet Song” is also Plath’s judgment on the wildly popular French actress, Brigitte Bardot. At the time Plath wrote this poem, Bardot had recently popularized the bikini and got worldwide attention with the 1956 boundary-pushing film movie, …And God Created Woman, released in Europe in November 1956. …And God Created Woman is about an immoral teenager (“that foul slut”) seducing the men (“Until every man” […] “Veers to her slouch”) in a respectable, small town. Bardot is known for her swollen, pouty lips (“that mouth/ Made to do violence on”) and the coal-black, heavy eyeliner (“black tarn”). Toward the end of the film, Bardot’s husband slaps her face four times, and she smiles at him. At the time of writing “Strumpet Song,” Plath was either consciously or unconsciously trying to seduce Hughes to remain with her in Britain instead of leaving for Australia with his uncle, as he had planned. She may have compared herself a little bit with Bardot, whom she disliked. Bardot was always cast as the ingénue or siren, usually in a state of undress, and was one of the few French actresses to be wildly adored internationally. Plath might have seen a little of her pre-Hughes seductress-self in Bardot, and her own faults are projected onto the actress (“That seamed face / Askew with blotch, dint, scar”). Nevertheless, Plath closes her poem with the hope that Hughes can look up into her “most chaste own eyes.” Plath’s February 1962 journals also show disdain for the actress, when a neighborhood girl expressed how much she idolized Bardot (UJ, 635). AND GOD CREATED WOMAN, BRIGITTE BARDOT, EARLY POEMS, PLATH POEM, STRUMPET SONG, SYLVIA PLATH, TED HUGHES
1 Comment
Katherine Waudby
4/9/2025 04:12:45 am
Is not Plath looking at her own reflection from the black tarn, the ditch and the cup? That is the soccer punch at the end of this poem. The harsh judgement with bleak lack of compassion for the whore who is foul, unlovable and deserving of violence is self reflection and self criticism. She may be projecting into the future to a time when she is older and with a seamed face and bruised by many joyless years but it is clear that she is referring to her own impurity and the abuse she has suffered, and not that of any other woman. the final line which characterises her own eyes as chaste is an acknowledgement that she is very different from how others might see her. She claims to be naive and virginal while others observe har as a slut. This is often how women feel when they are rejected by lovers to whom they have submitted. The rejection leaves the woman feeling cheap and used. Leave a Reply. |