Now Sylvia Path is 'Chick Lit'.

So previously we weighed in on the issue of 'chick lit' and how it tend to be demeaned by the wider literary community.  Now Sylvia Plath is involved. Personally, she is not my favorite writer, I enjoyed 'The Bell Jar', but I know people who hold her as something of an idol. So now that Sylvia Plaths' novel 

The Bell Jar has had a 50th anniversary makeover, many of these people have been in up roar at what they see as a belittlement of Plaths' talents. Plath's fans guard her legacy fiercely and many believe that this new cover turns her book into 'chick-lit'. Said incriminating cover is a bright bubblegum pinky red (above), contrasting with a 1950s style photo of a young woman patting powder from a compact onto her face, with her lips reflected in its mirror. It's color's seem traditional to those associated with chick lit, so many have calling it an insensitive choice for a book ground-breaking for detailing the suffocating power of gender stereotyping.

 Jezebel writes: “If Sylvia Plath hadn't already killed herself, she probably would've if she saw the new cover of her only novel The Bell Jar. For a book all about a woman's clinical depression that's exacerbated by the suffocating gender stereotypes of which she's expected to adhere and the limited life choices she has as a woman, it's pretty fucking stupid to feature a low-rent retro wannabe pinup applying makeup.”

Sorry Jez, I normally quite enjoy your wit, but I think your wrong, In defense I think it captures the essence of the book well. At the beginning of the book, The Bell Jar’s protagonist Esther Greenwood is working as a writer on a New York magazine; she and the other girls are given  freebies which include cosmetics such as the compact on the cover; and they are living and working in an environment concerned with glamour and fashion. So really the cover art is relevant to the book's content.Plus, the entire book deals with appearance and reality; Esther's outward appearance belies what is happening within. Knowing that she has to look and behave in a certain way. The woman on the covers powder and the lipstick are a mask, an image that is projected to others irrespective of inner turmoil'. The fact the mirror is in there invites you to reflect, as she does making up. Why is she fixing her face? Is it right that she feels that she has to do this? These sort of questions.

It is a disturbing image because of the placement and angles of the picture, the colour saturation and the expression on the woman's face viewed in the mirror, it's not a meaningless image. In fact the mouth is almost a sneer. Just like how be analyze more traditional art, why can't we analyze this book cover beyond the simple colours and make up? I can't help but think that sexism is evident not in the choice for the cover image, but in the public refusal to believe cosmetics and fashion are worthy subjects of a literary novel.

 In the 50s and early 60s women's behaviour was governed by certain social rules and they were valued mainly with regard to looks rather than intellect  The photograph on the cover captures this too. Nowhere do we see perhaps a pen or a notebook, the really important things in the protagonists life, instead we see the things that society viewed as important. The woman featured is firmly underneath the patriarchal thumb, toeing the line and looking just the way society says she should. Perhaps the cover can be interpreted deeper than simply cosmetics and a pout.

Regards,

Dorothy.