Creating the Persona of the Self

Abstract

More important than stories that deal with Plath’s first serious romance are those that investigate her developing sexuality. Several of her early stories that try to approach that controversial theme take as heroine Marcia (or Mary or Dody) Ventura. One of Plath’s high school friends, Mary Ventura, was the prototype for this character, a woman of a lower social class than Plath. Daring and candid, Mary/Marcia readily admitted to being sexually experienced. Plath’s stories ‘The Island” and “Den of Lions” are based on this character, and there are suggestions of the same sexual defiance in “The Estonian,” re-titled “The Latvian.” In the story “Mary Ventura,” the title character, the daughter of a poor Italian family, has not been able to think of going to college. When she mets the Plath persona on the street and they talk, Mary’s sense of defeat is tangible. As she tells her friend about her life experiences, all defined sexually and beginning with an affair with her piano teacher, her cool objectivity is puzzling, disturbing. The mystery of her attitude is intensified by the unexplained presence of a train in the background, a train moving steadily to some unknown destination.¹