The man-made conventions of our world, if allowed to reign unopposed and become a dominance we must give way to, can and will corrupt the fruit of our life’s intended course and negate everything natural. To mind-numbingly follow whatever conventions tell us is our best interest or is the order of things, is to enter a frozen state; the ninth kingdom. In opting to live within the conventional despite the natural inclination to do otherwise, one is resigning themselves to an apathetic and shallow existence that will only become the object of their regret when the reality of their end is upon them, at the end of the line. We can only break away from this monotonous march towards death by coming to these realizations ourselves, though how we do this is variable.

The escape route Mary Ventura takes is intentionally quite reminiscent of suicide, her last chance off this train being an Emergency Cord. To reference Camus’ absurdist question posed in The Myth of Sisyphus about whether the answer to the meaninglessness and pointless suffering of man is suicide, there is a sense that Plath is inclined to believe contrary to Camus in that yes, suicide is an escape from Hell on Earth, an elevation from this undesirable life and a relief from the prolonged suffering brought on by this unwilling partaking alongside the collective. It is a way of reclaiming agency and will when otherwise lost with seemingly no hope and no other method of reclamation.

Nice little short story that holds your attention and provides unique insight into Plath’s mind and origin of her literary themes at age 20, a year younger than I am now, which is pretty cool.