Sylvia Plath and the Language of World War II Elizabeth Tess Thompson College

The Holocaust is one of the most devastating and incomprehensible events in human memory. The systematic killing of millions of civilians and the attempted erasure of their culture defies logic, and exists outside the realm of everyday understanding. Words associated with the Holocaust or the dropping of the atomic bomb automatically summon a visceral frame of reference for anyone informed of the atrocities of World War II. Sylvia Plath’s use of Holocaust imagery as a lexicon in her poetry likens her struggles with power and suffering to the horror of mass genocide. By using such alarming language in her poetry, Plath’s writing arouses disturbing feelings of horror and confusion in the reader regardless of the overall subject matter. By associating her suffering with World War II, Plath elevates her experiences to a realm of common understanding.

While the imagery of World War II is accessible to many readers, Plath’s identification with the victims of the war, particularly the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, calls into question the ethics of such usage. Some readers feel that Plath’s appropriation of the victims’ experiences is morally reprehensible and unsuitable to her medium. Critic George Steiner asked “Does any writer,...