SOURCE: "The Self in the World: The Social Context of Sylvia Plath's Late Poems," in Women's Studies, Vol. 7, Nos. 1-2, 1980, pp. 171-83.

In the following essay, Annas offers analysis of depersonalization in Plath's poetry which, according to Annas, embodies Plath's response to oppressive modern society and her "dual consciousness of self as both subject and object."

For surely it is time that the effect of disencouragement upon the mind of the artist should be measured, as I have seen a dairy company measure the effect of ordinary milk and Grade A milk upon the body of the rat. They set two rats in cages side by side, and of the two one was furtive, timid and small, and the other was glossy, bold and big. Now what food do we feed women as artists upon?

             —Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

The dialectical tension between self and...