Sylvia Plath on her refusal to be typecast in marriage

    Sylvia Plath refused the conventional marriage role of her times:

And there it is: when asked what role I will plan to fill, I say, “What do you mean, role? I plan not to step into a part on marrying – but to go on living as an intelligent mature human being, growing and learning as I always have. No shift, no radical change in life habits.” Never will there be a circle, signifying me and my operations, confined solely to home, other womenfolk, and community service, enclosed in the larger worldly circle of my mate, who brings home from his periphery of contact with the world the tales only of vicarious experience to me. . . . (Quoted from The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 288.)

    typecast. adj.: “Identified with a particular kind of part.” v.: “To represent or regard as a stereotype.” (Oxford English Dictionary)

    Society commits an inhuman injustice when it tries to typecast. The child is female: here are her acceptable roles. The child’s skin color is this: here is the proper part for it.
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    For a biography of Sylvia Plath, click here.