Superman and Paula Brown's new snowsuit

The way Superman is symbolised is essential to the understanding of the short story, as at the beginning he looked ‘remarkably like [her] Uncle Frank’ Superman is the hero of the child narrator’s dreams and is some inspiration to her. She always plays games about him and thinks her uncle looks like him; she even creates her own little world with her friends about him and his adventures, so Superman is a figure that this little girl idolises. The unnamed narrator claims the nighttime ‘was the best time of the day’ as she can dream of Superman and all night, symbolising hope and imagination for her to reach certain “unattainable” dreams like flying with a fictional character. This furthers our understanding of the short story because we can empathise with the unnamed narrator; the vivid creativity of the little girl evokes our sympathy, as the reader knows this will not last forever.

Another important symbol, which is key to understanding the text, is the way the narrator dreams of flying, this increase our appreciation of the story because we empathise with her as she has dreams of something which can only be dreams. The symbolic nature of flying is that of possibility and imagination that the little girl possesses and we admire her for her creativity and ideas. At the beginning the narrator sees she is flying and can actually believe that she is flying this suggests that she believes in flying so much that it is a very important aspect of her life. After the incident with the war film at the cinema she can no longer dream of flying, this is very symbolic and vital to understanding the story as it suggests that she has started making adult realisations about the world, the possibility of flying has been removed as if they were ‘crude drawings of a child in coloured chalk’ this emphasises our sympathy for the narrator and therefore increases our appreciation of the story.  

The clothes that both Paula Brown and Superman wear are important symbols, one is Paula’s powder blue snowsuit; the other is Superman’s famous blue suit with the red cape trailing behind. They both symbolise different and opposite things, one is self-indulge and petty materialistic which can be used to describe Paula another way to describe her is ‘bossy and stuck up’. Whereas Superman’s suit is a symbol of justice, righteousness and miraculous deliverance from evil, which is how the narrator sees Superman. He is supposed to come and ‘smash the yellow men’ but sadly since being let down by her family and her friends she no longer sees Superman in her dreams. This evokes our appreciation for the narrator as we can emphasise with her because she had made adult realisations that the world is cruel and unjust.

To conclude it is one of Plath’s writing that she often uses symbolism to reinforce the theme of childhood innocence being taken away and the way the narrator make adult realisations. This creates a sense of sympathising with the unnamed narrator to generate our appreciation of the short story. The symbols individually may not seem quite significant but when considered together they become vital to understanding the story as they highlight important themes of materialistic, justice and childhood innocence. Through the use of symbolism Plath reminds us that adult realisation is unavoidable evoking our sympathy for the little girl therefore also increasing our appreciation for the unnamed character.