Comparison of Marla Singer and Plath's Poetry

At first glance it is not obvious that there are many links between the work of Plath and the character Marla Singer from the novel 'Fight Club.' However there are a number of strong links between the two subjects from the presentation of female characters to the commodification of both emotional and physical human characteristics.

The portrayal of women in Plath's poetry is similar to Palahniuk's description of Marla in 'Fight Cub.' On page 18 in 'Fight Club' Marla is described as "skim milk thin, butter milk sallow." The use of the word "sallow" depicts Marla to have a very sickly skin tone, a pale shade of off yellow suggesting that she is not healthy similar to the "afflicted" nature of the girls described in Plath's poetry "Spinster." Furthermore the assonance of 'I' represents the weight of Marla, incredibly stick thin, so thin that when standing side on it is hard to see her making it a rather unpleasant sight. The use of sound is also similar to Plath's use of sound in the poem "Spinster" through her use of the plosive 'b' sound in "bird's irregular babel" to describe the something unpleasant. Marla's description of 'dark roses' suggests that she is untidy. A dark rose is often associated with a dying or dead rose. The image of the drooping flower and a base of messy fallen petals. When taking petals to represent the clothing of a woman the dark rose which is Marla's suggests that she is messy and reflects a sloven attitude. This sloven attitude is also seen in the poem "Spinster" where Plath "Judged the petals in disarray...The whole season sloven." The extended metaphor of the "fern and flowers" representing other women and the harsh alliteration of 'f' representing Plath's dislike for them we can see that Plath viewed the other women that Ted Hughes have affairs with as "sloven" or in modern English sluts.

The commodification of human experience and emotions is a theme that links both Marla Singer and Plath's poetry. In the poem 'Lady Lazarus' Plath writes about this theme in the line "the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge" suggests that the poetry is her story and emotions written down on script and the "peanut-crunching crowd" or the readers are turning her life into a spectacle and use it as a form of entertainment. The use of the metaphor "peanut-crunching crowd." Implies that Plath does not view the readers of her work as intelligent and consequently they do not see the true meaning of the poetry as she would have intended but merely as a form of entertainment. The repetition of the word "Charge" emphasises the voyeuristic nature of society and the fact that people are making money off her pain. Plath later goes on to state she is now just an object that is made to be listened to and owned with the use of "I am your opus." An opus is a great work of art, a composition of music which is created to be entertaining. With focus and emphasis placed on "your" it gives the impression that Plath is owned by her readers, she has simply through her poetry made her emotions a human commodity and the property of other people who buy her poems. The concept of emotions being little more a property is also seen in 'Fight Club' between the less than harmonious and stereotypical relationship of Marla and 'Joe' (nameless narrator of the book). On page 14 the line "This isn't about love as in caring. This is about property as in ownership" which suggests that human emotions are an object to owned and used like an everyday object.

It is not only the commodification of human experiences and emotions that

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