Sit. Stay. Roll over. Dogs follow their masters’ commands (usually) and do not complain. But humans are not dogs. Society circa 1950 would have expected Sylvia Plath, a woman, and Langston Hughes, a black man to fill the expected stereotypes of housewife and lowlife, respectively. Their cultures would have expected them to follow their master’s commands. Contrary to society’s “commands,” both Hughes and Plath eloquently express their desires for nonconformity yet normality with stylistic genius in rhythm and sentence structure.
The comma, though seemingly small and unimportant, holds the balance between a girl, ready for her life, and a girl, maybe not as certain. Plath’s use of commas in her journal entry, allows the reader to hear her uncertainty; she does not simply state “I want…to be omniscient,” she pauses, waits, and hesitates: “I want, I think, to be omniscient,” (Plath). That breath gives the reader insight to her desire to be free and overlooking all, but her quiet uncertainty about that freedom. Hughes, in his poem, uses commas also to show his inner thoughts. He communicates his similarity to his instructor, a white, old, college professor, by professing “You are white-/yet part of me, as I am a part of you,” (Hughes). That pause serves as a discovery, an epiphany of his conformity to society, his normality. Though subtle, their breaths reveal the subtlety of their desires: their want to break free society yet, their almost subconscious want for commonality.
With breath, come words. With words comes a rhythm that gives a human voice to writing. Hughes and Plath both realize the power of the perfect word to tell more than its dictionary meaning. Plath and Hughes choose words beginning with the same sound, or alliteration, to illustrate the banality of everyday life. To illuminate the fact that his life differs very little from that of his classmates, he states that he would like for a present “records- Bessie, bop, or Bach,” (Hughes). The obvious rhythm derived from this choice of words gives the impression that his wants do not deviate from that of society, even though he refuses to conform to its wants. Similarly, Plath, applying alliteration, asks for freedom from “the relentless cage of routine and rote.” Her repeated use of the beginning sound “r” mimics her life if conformed to society: the same thing every day, with no hope for change. However, the soothing rhythm comforts the reader. The conflicting mundanity and comfort of the alliteration in both works gives the impression of a conflicted person, one who mocks conformity, yet longs for it.
Hughes and Plath, in addition to alliteration, employ short sentences and phrases to help the reader feel their strong desires to break from society as well as remaining in congruence with society’s mores. Readers tend to have short attention spans, so long, drawn out sentences lose their attention. Both writers therefore use shorter sentences to capture attention and point to important parts in their writing.
Plath, as she faces a new world, a world of adulthood and responsibility, becomes panicked, as she needs to decide “what college? What career? [She is] afraid. [She] feels uncertain. What is best for [her]? What do[es] [she] want? [She] do[es] not know. [She] love[s] freedom,” (Plath). The brevity creates a more pointed attitude toward the subject of her rather uncertain future making the reader uncertain when he reaches “I love freedom.” Out of context, she seems fine with jumping headfirst into life, but with the series of short sentences, Plath creates a feeling of dubiety simply from sentence structure so that “I love freedom” loses its innocence. The reader realizes that she wants freedom, with no choice: in other words, freedom, without freedom.
Hughes use of short sentences, rather than creating a feeling of panic and discontent, utilizes brevity to display his logic plainly to the reader. As he states, “You are white- /yet part of me, as I am a part of you. /That’s American,” simply gives a definition of what he thinks constitutes “American”: a melting pot of people who, although look different, share common societal values (Hughes). This simple ideal displays his want for conformity to society, yet by asserting that Hughes and his older, white professor are equal, he bursts open the box in which society has confined him as only an African-American, as inferior. Only two words and a definition illustrate both his want for conformity, and the fact that in doing so, he has alienated himself from society’s “box.”
From start to finish, both writers thread a motif, to create an overall togetherness in their writing, while breaking free from it in the middle. At seventeen, Plath adores life. In the first paragraph, like a normal, life-loving teenage girl she feels she must “keep and hold the rapture of being seventeen.” At the end, she still feels that her “life is still just beginning. [She is] strong,” (Plath). However, her happy-go-lucky start and finish meet twists and turns in the dark alleys of the middle paragraphs. She admits, “Even now [she] dread[s] the big choices which loom up in [her] life” yet she stays the same, and does not make the choices which would free her from the conformities of society. She instead returns to the safe, comfortable room of optimism. Likewise, Hughes starts out (predictably) with his prompt: “Go home and write / a page tonight. / And let that page come out of you- / Then, it will be true,” but then unexpectedly continues with a poem instead of an essay (Hughes). However, he returns to his prompt to conclude his page with “This is my page for English B,” (Hughes). The nice, neat, normal, expected packaging surrounds his unorthodox middle, symbolizing Hughes' similarities to white society, but his differences as well. The mirrored structure of both pieces symbolizes each writer’s conformity surrounding inner desires to break free from the mold society has given each of them.
Everything from symbolism in the structure of each piece, down to the very breaths dictated by the placement of the comma illustrates both Plath’s and Hughes’ want for freedom from society’s binds but, also their hesitance to break free, completely, from society’s comfortable stability. They want to be freed from the leashes society has them under, but not the dog house that protects them. But, unlike a pet dog, they have a choice to unlock the fence, and just walk out to freedom. They do not have to Sit. Stay. And wait to Play Dead.
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