Sylvia Plath's "Metaphors" and Marge Piercy's "The Secretary Chant"

For centuries, women are characterized according to the gender norms assigned by men. Being a woman, in this sense, brings some unwritten rules which put obstacles in the way of gender equality. In a male-dominated society, women are associated with parentage while men are expected to be workers because families attribute these gender roles to them from the day they are born. In general, women are expected to engage in domestic affairs and motherhood rather than having a job. Because of the norms and limitations assigned by men, women feel overwhelmed and dehumanized. Thus, they begin to think that they do not belong in any place gradually.

In Sylvia Plath’s “Metaphors”, the speaker expresses little pleasure about expecting a child. Although she uses humorous images, the tone of the poem cannot be described as happy or excited. Instead, it is bitter and a little sad similar to the tone of “The Secretary Chant” in which the persona loses her identity and describes her job in a monotonous way.

The persona in “Metaphors” sometimes mocks herself but she feels anxious and uneasy about motherhood, indeed. For instance, she compares herself to an elephant as she has gained weight. The speaker knows that there is no turning back and that her life will change forever with the baby. Thus, the role of motherhood is a heavy burden for her. The persona sees herself as mean and just a carrier for a child who is metaphorically described as a fruit. In the poem, elephants are valuable for their ivory and a house is valuable for a family. In this sense, a pregnant woman is not a human being but a kind of machine for baby-making. Likewise, in “The Secretary Chant”, although it is a natural cause to have a baby, the speaker’s strong mechanical features that are attributed to men in the workplace do not let her feel like a woman. Having been dehumanized, she no longer feels like a human being but an inanimate object used in the office. To support her machine-like persona, she sees herself as a Xerox machine used for making copies. Thus, her child can only be a copy of herself, a machine.

In “Metaphors”, the color of the fruit, green, suggests her negative approach to pregnancy as green apples are mostly sour. Also, there is a sense of guilt since the apples are associated with the forbidden fruit in the Scriptures. In other words, she conveys her anxiety and uneasiness to the reader through the use of metaphors. In the same way, by use of such metaphors as “my hips are a desk”, the speaker conveys the idea that she has lost her personality and identity in “The Secretary Chant”.

In the last lines of Piercy’s poem, instead of delivering a baby or giving birth, the speaker says “I am about to be delivered a baby”. The passive voice used in this line is more technical and it implies that she is like a passive figure getting help from others. Also, in the poem, “once” is intentionally written as “wonce” since the “w” letter is a silent sound. In this sense, this spelling emphasizes that the woman has no voice or importance in the workplace. Feeling consumed and possessed by her job, the speaker has become the things she works with. Similarly, in “Metaphors”, the speaker draws attention to the form of words. The poem, for instance, is a riddle in nine syllables. The speaker is probably the poet herself and the riddle is about her pregnancy since it has nine lines and each line has nine syllables. The word pregnancy also has nine letters and it lasts nine months.

In conclusion, in a male-dominated society, women are demanded to deal with domestic issues, unlike men who are associated with politics and business. Although women do not have to become a mother, they are expected to be. For centuries, women have been limited and classified according to the traditional female stereotypes which depict women only as mother figure or as a machine who obeys gender norms.