SUPERMAN AND PAULA BROWN’S NEW SNOWSUIT



Superman and Paula Brown’s New Snowsuit

 

Sylvia Plath

 

This story is about many things but the overriding issue here is of a child and her loss of faith. The story begins by highlighting three events, war, winning a prize and Paula’s new snowsuit. We know from the introduction that these things have had a dramatic effect on the protagonist (main character) whose name we never learn. We also learn from the title that the most dramatic event involves Paula and her snowsuit.

 

From Johnson Avenue, the protagonist kneels almost as if in prayer to Logan Airport, and from here in we learn of the author’s fascination with colour “The sunset flaunted its pink flag” /L.l1/L.14. The intended effect this could have on the reader would be perhaps to visualise the world of the narrator vividly. It could also be to suggest that childlike memories are caught in snap shots. What is important to note is that the colours start off bright and as the story progresses the colours get darker until L.191. This represents the changing tone of the story.

The protagonist’s world is colourful and magical, she displays a powerful imagination. The author tells us of her flying dreams and compares her dreams to Dali paintings (a Surrealist painter). The child’s magical dreams are happy and familiar. Superman, who resembles Uncle Frank, teaches her to fly. We know this is wonderful for her as she worships Superman.

A fellow worshipper, David Sterling appears to be her kindred spirit and together they have secret hiding places which are special. They find a stand in villain for their games, Sheldon Fein and while David and our narrator choose to be alone SF doesn’t, he is excluded from the other children. Our narrator and David are exclusive of other children who play basketball (boys) and giggle (girls).

 

In SF the narrator creates for us, the audience, a character who goes too far. SF is sadistic and it would seem he takes out his frustrations about being rejected on insects. He doesn’t only torture insects he enjoys watching them struggle. This magnified image of sadism is later repeated with Japanese war prisoners.

We are introduced to Uncle Frank (the Superman look alike). UF is playful and enjoys entertaining the protagonist and David. It is also notable that the protagonist’s father is absent. The protagonist is able to love this character without having the more intense relationship to that of parent-child. This character serves as a sort of youthful father/older brother.

After L53 the atmosphere changes dramatically and rapidly with the declaration of war. War saturates every waking moment. School activities become war orientated, while the author offers us images that are oppressive and terrifying “pencils between our teeth so that the bombs wouldn’t make us bite our tongues by mistake”. While Sheldon’s mother worries about relatives in Germany, Sheldon’s response is goose-stepping during recess (school break-time). This image makes the reader ever more suspicious of the Nazi imitator.

 

Finally Paula Brown is introduced to the story, an unpopular, ‘bossy’, ‘stuck-up’ child. We see Paula making a display of her wealth as she shows the other less wealthy children her birthday presents. She shows what the other children cannot have. One of the presents is the title’s snowsuit.

 

The author makes the protagonist more sensitive that the other children during a trip to the cinema in honour of Paula’s birthday. Ironically before ‘Snow White’, which is a typically fairy tale complete with a happy ever after, there is a film depicting war atrocities. The narrator is sickened by this, she finds the cruelty unbearable. She is notably the only child who leaves the cinema to vomit. Her wonderful haven of sleep is hereafter destroyed for good and not even Superman can save her.

The next day’s incident seems to work as a catalyst in the narrator’s life. As the day ends the narrator experiences her final loss of innocence, trust, childhood and belief in all that is good.

 

Paula recruits the narrator in a game of tag and immediately tags her, in turn Sheldon is tags. Jimmy Lane joins in and Paula is the focus for his flirtation. He inadvertently knocks Paula and her white snow suit into an oil slick. Everyone is shocked, as dislikeable as she may be Paula has status. Paula is furious, humiliated and embarrassed and turns on our narrator as a scapegoat-goat. Again we are reminded of the war.

The other children revel in the victimising of our protagonist, ‘a strange joy flickering in the back of their eyes’. The disturbing scene turns from mob intimidation to violence, yet again we are given war, like imagery. A comparison could be made to the Nazis chasing the scapegoat Jew.

The narrator runs to the apparent safety to be bitterly betrayed by those who she loves most. As the protagonist is swung through the air by her uncle, she is given temporary relief in her ideal of flight. She, and we the audience, are lulled into a false sense of security. As her uncle teachers her ju-jitsu (a form of self defence - the irony of this cannot fail to hit the reader), the light is calming.

 

Betrayal comes firstly from her soul mate David. Her mother is immediately willing to believe a neighbour over her own daughter. The protagonists denial rings ‘hollow’ and ‘insincere’. She is alone and betrayed by those she trusted. Her uncle questions her, clearly not believing her first denial. Then this strong, funny superman disintegrates before her eyes as he resigns himself to taking on board the accusation of others - even if it does make our narrator look falsely guilty.

The narrator realises she is alone in the world of darkness. The realisation that grips her is bleak and terrible.

 

There are many references to war throughout the story and at the end, the protagonist’s family is being wrongly persecuted by the neighbours over Paula’s coat - while it has nothing to do with the neighbours, they pass on the information in an accusatory manner. Paula and family are powerful and the neighbourhood works and their ‘boot boys’ in this instance. It could very easily have been someone else. As in Nazi Germany different minority sectors were persecuted along with the Jews,

in the neighbourhood there is a pecking order that our narrator fell foul of, it could easily have been Sheldon who was blamed - but somebody weaker and different.

To see this only as an analogy to WWll would be reductive but there are certainly strong echoes of this. We must not ignore the fact that it is a realisation of growing up. This story, in this sense, can be compared to “A Darkness Out There”.

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