Vietos ir ideologijos santykis Sylvios Plath romane „Stiklo gaubtas“

Abstract

Drawing on the extensive body of criticism on Sylvia Plath’s works, her autobiographical novel “The Bell Jar” has been discussed as reflecting on the concept of femininity and the question of women’s choices in America at midcentury. Drawing on Michel de Certeau, it is highlighted that individual encounters with the city produce a continuous re-signification of original (institutionalized and architecturally predetermined) signification related to socially coded geographical locales to function as a site that can be re-visioned and re-embodied in accordance to subjective perception of places. This revisionary potential, as per de Certeau, resides in the distinction between place and space which is a “practiced place”. It is considered how the female protagonist’s encounter with places as forms of public spaces validates their existence as objectified and socially predetermined places. By reflecting on the possibilities of embodiment within these places, she questions the social meanings displayed therein and thus challenges the social order intended by strategically defined uses of this public space.