A common reoccurring phenomenon in the natural world and the universe, chaos and order appears everywhere. Even the universe began with a big bang that created everything from nothing and in the mist of chaos came order. This chaos-order relationship occurs everywhere even within human society. The study of humanities such as literature reflects such issues and topics. Greek tragedies portray the gods as the order keepers, but as literature is traced down to the 20th century or what scholars called the modern age, literature starts to reflect such relationship unintentionally to the audience. Since literature tends to reflect conflicts and problems of it's time. It's reasonable to assume that it's a doorway to the thought and ideas of the past. Sylvia Plath's "The Applicant" showcases an individual presumed to be a man due to later stanzas, accept to portray the order and chaos relationship though an individual's lack of material and ultimately a fundamental question of need is being asked over and over by an unknown speaker. Plath’s usage of both poetic format and the monologue from the unknown speaker reflects this chaos-order relationship within the 60’s social thought.
Plath uses many notions in “The Applicant” that indicates a continuous chaotic bombardment of questions and suggestions. The question, “Will you marry it?” (Plath 15) was continuously used by the speaker. Notice, how the question distinctively uses the word “it” rather than he or she, suggesting the object is inanimate. However, a question that uses the word “marry” usually indicates a strong attachment to be made usually with other person. What contributes to the chaos of the entire poem is how the speaker suggested different inanimate objects continuously throughout the entire aspect of the poem. But what stands as chaotic and confusing is a possible reference in the third stanza about someone who would “bring teacups and roll away headaches”(13), but the speaker still referred to this possible person as an “it” even though it could be a person. So why does this speaker refer to every object, regardless of an animate or inanimate one, as an “it”. The answer lies within the 60’s thought, a person is imperfect and thus needs to obtain inanimate and animate items to be regarded as perfect, even though animate items can also be a spouse. In essence, the speaker’s capitalist free market ideology brings confusion and chaos into the poem and to the receiver as well.
In the ensuring chaos, Plath used a uniform way of writing “The Applicant”, the entire poem except for the second stanza, is completely comprised of five lined stanzas that focused on different needs. And almost all the stanzas end with an enjambment. “How about this suit ----“(21) and “Black and stiff, but not a bad fit”(22) shows enjambment being used as a way to switch subjects, but continue onto another stanza. This pattern repeats throughout the poem. As a recurring aspect of this chaos-order relationship, Plath showcases a confusing, but organized form of need on the receiver’s end. The speaker asked the receiver about needing a suit, jewelry for his possible wife or someone close, “teacups” that’ll “shut your [his] eyes at the end” (16-7), and other items with the question “Will you marry it” constantly asked towards the end of his suggestions. Plath used this to reflect the social thoughts of the 60s. The need to have what one lacks, but this in essence brought upon questions from the reader and also confusion for the receiving end of these questions/suggestions.
Courtesy of mathworld.wolfram.com. These are basic shapes used in heavy numbers to mimic a similar shape. However, when one looks at it, it appears complicated, confusing, and even chaotic. But in the end, it's simplicity rather than complexity. Much like Plath's organized method to describe a chaotic time period of consumerism and questions. Mathworld highlights how simple shapes could be used to form essentially the same shapes using a large quality of it's smaller versions, however the results look web like and confusing compare to the simple 2D shapes of which it's made from.
Word Count: 679
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