Ableist Psychiatric Structures in Sylvia Plath’s "Tongues of Stone"

Abstract

Sylvia Plath’s fiction set in hospitals depicts the experience of ableism directed towards the mentally ill protagonists. In ‘Tongues of Stone’ the unnamed girl experiences trauma from the ableist treatment she receives from psychiatric professionals. Plath challenges the ableist psychiatric system by depicting the way traumatic treatments, particularly insulin shock therapy, are administered to patients. The nurses also use ableist language towards physical disability. Whilst Plath challenges ableism, she also uses ableist metaphors herself. This somewhat weakens Plath’s challenging of societal ableism, as she uses metaphors of physical disability to describe the experience of mental disability.