Section Article

Feminine Despair and Symbolic Resistance: A Psychoanalytic Reading of Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf
Author(s): Lavanya Singh

Abstract
The intersection of gender psyche and literary expression forms a critical locus in the study of modernist and postmodernist womens literature. Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf two towering figures in English literary tradition are often invoked in discussions surrounding feminine despair mental illness and the socio-psychic burdens imposed on women by patriarchal structures. Their respective bodies of work are not only testimonies of personal suffering but also literary excavations of the unconscious written in registers that challenge both normative social structures and traditional literary forms. A psychoanalytic framework especially one influenced by Freudian and post-Freudian theorists such as Lacan and Kristeva provides a potent lens through which the psychic depth and symbolic strategies of these authors can be interpreted. This paper aims to examine how feminine despair is constructed and resisted in the works of Plath and Woolf revealing that their literature functions as a symbolic space for both the articulation and subversion of internalized oppression.