Question

Then the girls had led her here, blindfolded still, through the corridors of Betsy Johnson's house and shut her in the cellar. It would be an hour before they came to get her, but then Court would be all over and she would say what she had to say and go home.

For tonight was the grand finale, the trial by fire. There really was no doubt now that she would get in. She could not think of anyone who had ever been invited into the high school sorority and failed to get through initiation time. But even so, her case would be quite different. She would see to that. She could not exactly say what had decided her revolt, but it definitely had something to do with Tracy and something to do with the heather birds.

—"Initiation,"
Sylvia Plath

Read this passage. In your own words, explain how the central conflict leads Millicent to change.

Answer 1

The passage sets up a clash between Millicent’s wish to belong and a growing refusal to lose herself in the sorority’s ritual. Externally she’s been led, blindfolded and helpless, toward an initiation that would make her one of the group; internally she’s realized that the cost of acceptance may be surrendering her voice and values. That realization — partly sparked by her feelings about Tracy and the image of the heather birds (symbols of freedom/otherness) — turns her from an anxious candidate into someone determined to resist. Instead of passively submitting, she decides to speak up at the “Court” and then leave: the pressure to conform produces a conscious revolt, changing her from eager would‑be member to an assertive individual who refuses the ritual.