Finally found one that doesn’t nag!
A man comments on a video of a newly innovated female robot. We all sigh.
Time and time again we are exposed to the common trope of women as creatures who complain. Nag. Annoy. Irritate.
This overwhelming trope seeps into our fiction. The annoying wife, the crazy girlfriend, the blue-haired feminist. It’s not surprising that this has led to the dehumanisation of real, human women—with men favouring robots who don’t speak unless either spoken or programmed to.
This is precisely what makes Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Plath’s The Bell Jar powerful instances of fiction. Both Moshfegh and Plath utilise the classic literary technique of the first-person perspective in order to transform the critical feminine voice into an art.
Laden with complaints, the protagonists of both novels pose a pessimistic view of life; stating “I couldn’t see the point of getting up. I had nothing to look forward to” (Plath) and “Sometimes I feel dead…And I hate everybody” (Moshfegh).
But we as audience members are not inclined to criticise, label, and exclaim with annoyance. We do not feel that these women exacerbate us with their perpetual nagging.
This is because we are them. Plath and Moshfegh’s use of the first-person entwines us with the minds and bodies of these women. The repetitions of “I” and “me” are mantras that align us with this feminine perspective – showing us ways in which the critical feminine voice can be a tool to illuminate new presentations of the female gender.
We cannot point and laugh. We are forced to understand. Forced to develop their views and live their lifestyles.
Thus, Moshfegh and Plath create equally powerful works of literature by combining the first-person perspective with the critical feminine voice.
The power of their work can be highlighted through their ability to twist age-old tropes on their head—creating a vacuum in which female complaint becomes a communicative art, not a negative trope.
Photo by M.T ElGassier on Unsplash