A Post-Structuralist Reading of Sylvia Plath's "Bee Sequence"

This paper aims at studying Sylvia Plath's "Bee Sequence" in the light of the post-structuralist theory, hypothesizing that her views of her father and husband as well as her relation to them, conveyed through bee imagery, have no consistency of their own and bear no definite meaning or certainty. The signifiers that frequently appear in that sequence have no fixed relation to their signifieds, thus supporting a post-structuralist presupposition of a de-centering or dismantling of meaning. 
The study begins with a brief introduction about post-structuralism and its characteristics.  It is also limited to the analysis of the Bee Sequence, since it formulates a shared stream of thought and truly reflects Plath's vague and "undecidable" stance toward her father in particular and masculinity in general.  The method followed throughout the study depends on showing the conflict between signifiers and their signifieds, as well as the slide of one signifier into others.  Such conscious, or unconscious, devices help create a sense of uncertainty which is one characteristic of post-structuralism.