Will you marry it? / It is guaranteed / / To thumb shut your eyes at the end / And dissolve of sorrow.
-- Speaker (Lines 14-17)

Importance: These lines from the third and fourth stanzas of the poem entice the applicant to marriage as a social guarantor. The wife will accompany the husband to the point of death, the speaker suggests. This is conveyed, therefore, as a good investment for the applicant to consider. Moreover, the speaker postulates that the thoroughly objectified female subject – literally referred to as “it” (14) – will act as a panacea to the inevitable sadness that the applicant will encounter throughout the life. This promise of perpetual comfort is nothing other than snake oil, Sylvia Plath seems to imply.

I notice you are stark naked. / How about this suit—— // Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.
-- Speaker (Lines 19-21)

Importance: These lines from the fourth and fifth stanzas of the poem suggest that the applicant is shamefully exposed...