The Applicant

Throughout “The Applicant,” Plath utilizes a unique structure, point of view, and tone to make her thematic points. Plath uses aspects of satire and sarcasm, and she positions her poetic voice in the hands of those she criticizes. This approach, along with the way she demonstrates objectification with horrific and vivid imagery, makes the poem a powerful indictment of the era’s consumerist and patriarchal treatment of women.

The poem opens without context and in the second-person perspective. The first stanza focuses on physical limitations and needs, quickly revealing that the speaker is a salesperson speaking directly to a consumer, the applicant. The salesperson’s pitch hinges upon a common trick in advertising, which is to identify a potential audience lacking something that the product can fill. The first line of the poem identifies this tactic as the speaker asks, “[A]re you our sort of a person?” (Line 1), meaning are you a person who lacks something? The list of potential deficiencies is trivial. The deficiencies all focus on physical things like a missing eye, fake teeth, an atypical walk, or “Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch” (Line 5).