For a Fatherless Son
You will be aware of an absence, presently, Growing beside you, like a tree, A death tree, color gone, an Australian gum tree --- Balding, gelded by lightning--an illusion, And a sky like a pig's backside, an utter lack of attention. But right now you are dumb. And I love your stupidity, The blind mirror of it. I look in And find no face but my own, and you think that's funny. It is good for me To have you grab my nose, a ladder rung. One day you may touch what's wrong --- The small skulls, the smashed blue hills, the godawful hush. Till then your smiles are found money.
-Sylvia Plath

I though it interesting how Plath would write this poem maybe for 2 reasons. One she didn't have her own father growing up, and now she is raising her children without a father and later on without even a herself, or a mother.

Bell Jar ending

In the Bell Jar I think that the end was very lazy by Sylvia Plath. I felt as though Plath took the easy way out making what I would call a "happy ending" and a depressing book. Plath calls the book a potboiler and I agree only in the way she wrote the ending. It just seemed unlike the rest of the book to close in such a unresolved fashion. It seems like such a long shot that shock therapy would work after the first shock therapy she had. The first shock therapy leading her to not get help and then try to commit suicide. Shock therapy working is like the easy way out for Plath, and therefor the lazy ending.

Nicholas Hughes (Sylvia Plath's Son)

I found an article on the New York Times website about how Sylvia Plath's son Nicholas Hughes committed suicide a few years ago (in 2009). I would imagine that growing up without a mother and later learning that she killed herself was what fueled the depression Nicholas struggled with.

Here's the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/books/24plath.html

"A Birthday Present" for Sylvia Plath's 80th Birthday (yesterday)

Open Culture has a great article about Sylvia Plath, on what would have been her 80th birthday yesterday. 

Flavorwire, one of my favorite blogs, paired some images of Plath with excerpts from her writing (The Bell Jar and her published journals) that are well worth a look: here.

Sexuality Comparisons

As we finished The Bell Jar, I made some general connections between it and Salinger's works. The main thing that I noticed was that there were issues and confusion of sexuality in Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar. In Catcher in the Rye, Holden has multiple experiences in which he wants to do something sexual but then doesn't or just seems to be confused about it in general. When Holden is staying in a hotel, he notices a couple squirting water at each other in another room and kind of playing around and he also notices a guy dressing in women's clothes. He says he doesn't like that kind of stuff but ends up watching it anyways. Also, when he meets Sunny the prostitute, he doesn't want to get started right away and wants to get to know her first. In The Bell Jar, Joan is discovered to be a lesbian and Ester becomes uncomfortable at first about being around her.

Feminism

This is one of Sylvia's poems that I heard and it reminded me of the theme in "The Bell Jar" of marriage being an enslavement for women.

Here's the text:

First, are you our sort of a person?
Do you wear
A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,
A brace or a hook,
Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch,

Stitches to show something's missing? No, no? Then
How can we give you a thing?
Stop crying.
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. Here is a hand

To fill it and willing
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do whatever you tell it.
Will you marry it?
It is guaranteed

To thumb shut your eyes at the end
And dissolve of sorrow.
We make new stock from the salt.
I notice you are stark naked.
How about this suit----

Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.
Will you marry it?
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they'll bury you in it.

Now your head, excuse me, is empty.
I have the ticket for that.
Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
Well, what do you think of that ?
Naked as paper to start

But in twenty-five years she'll be silver,
In fifty, gold.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk , talk.

It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a hole, it's a poultice.
You have an eye, it's an image.
My boy, it's your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.

"Sylvia"; a movie about Sylvia Plath

I seem to be becoming the blog's official video poster, but here's another one. This is the first part of the Sylvia Plath Movie. I think that the way Gwyneth Paltrow portrays Sylvia Plath is really interesting. There is also a reference to a scene in the Bell Jar when Doreen bites Lenny's ear. In this movie, Plath bites Ted Hughes on the cheek the night she meets him. I think that she might be trying to be like Doreen and look sexy and flirtatious. It's interesting because in the beginning of the Bell Jar, after the scene with Doreen and Lenny, Esther makes a firm resolution not to be like Doreen and to be more like Betsy. Any thoughts? Does the movie do a good or bad job of portraying Plath's life?

The Bell Jar Gone High School Musical

I was listening to my Pandora station when this song by the Bangles came on. I'm not sure if it was written about Sylvia Plath's book, but it really resinates with some of the depressive behaviors we have been talking about in class. The end of the song, however, does not mirror the end of the novel. The song ends with the girl in the bell jar suffocating, being choked by her own paranoia. I took Esther's entrance into the meeting at the end of the book to be a symbol of recovery. What do you think?

Here are the lyrics and a link to the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrwIu3ygTyY

She walks in the room
And checks out the faces
We think she's all the seven wonders of the world
But there's a sadness
Hidden in the bizarre
Moonlight and madness
Living in a bell jar
She dresses in black
'Cause sorrow is a magnet
Everything comes to her like it was meant to be
But she's frustrated
Leaving things as they are
What she created
Living in a bell jar
She feels so at home
She's never alone
But she's oh so lonely
What is the crime
In knowing your mind
Set it free
Attached to a mirror
In her glass-sided prison
She writes the note that will excuse her from this world
It's complicated
Living in a bell jar
She suffocated
Living in a bell jar

Cadavers...

I kind of elaborated on this in class, but I found the use of "cadaver" on the first page and the last page really interesting. On the first page, the sentence is: "[The Rosenbergs] was like the first time I saw a cadaver. For weeks afterward, the cadaver's head--or what there was left of it--floated up behind my eggs...I felt as though I were carrying that cadaver's head around with me on a string." On the last page, she describes Miss Huey's face as "pocked, cadaverous." It seems that even after Esther has dropped to the lowest point of her depression and then rises up, she can't shake the cadaver from her life. Maybe the cadaver represents the death that constantly shadows her life.

More Verve Music

When I saw Jen's post about the Verve, it reminded me about another song by the Verve, which can also be related to Ester.  It is called "Bittersweet Symphony". To me, the lyrics seemed to fit Ester's life. I have underlined a few lines that I think can relate to Ester and the Bell Jar.

Lyrics:

'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life
Try to make ends meet
You're a slave to money then you die
I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down
You know the one that takes you to the places 
where all the veins meet yeah, 

No change, I can change
I can change, I can change
But I'm here in my mold
I am here in my mold
But I'm a million different people 
from one day to the next
I can't change my mold
No, no, no, no, no

Well I never pray
But tonight I'm on my knees yeah
I need to hear some sounds that recognize the pain in me, yeah
I let the melody shine, let it cleanse my mind, I feel free now
But the airways are clean and there's nobody singing to me now

No change, I can change
I can change, I can change
But I'm here in my mold
I am here in my mold
And I'm a million different people
from one day to the next
I can't change my mold
No, no, no, no, no
I can't change
I can't change

'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life
Try to make ends meet
Try to find some money then you die
I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down
You know the one that takes you to the places 
where all the things meet yeah 

You know I can change, I can change
I can change, I can change
But I'm here in my mold
I am here in my mold
And I'm a million different people
from one day to the next
I can't change my mold
No, no, no, no, no

I can't change my mold
no, no, no, no, no,
I can't change
Can't change my body,
no, no, no

I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down
I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down
Been down
Ever been down
Ever been down
Ever been down
Ever been down
Have you ever been down?
Have you've ever been down?

*Sorry about the coloring guys. I don't know why its like this or how to fix it.

Meaning behind "Greenwood"

In the middle of class today, I had this huge revelation today about Esther's last name a possibly why Plath chose it.  This also couldn't have came at a better time considering we are talking about paradoxes and as I thought about the name Greenwood I began to think about "green wood" and how the green could be the mold or moss growing along the "wood" which signifies Esther and this decay of the wood is the instability of her sanity unravels.  So, as a contradictory point that makes this whole thing a paradox is that green wood can also be considered as a freshly cut slab of wood that is still resistant to oxidation and fire.  Therefore, this new piece of green wood can symbolize the beginning of her life and how she is a totally new and different person after her experience with depression and the extents she travels in attempts to kill herself.

To sum this up for people who dont really understand what i'm talking about because a majority of the time I dont make sense, it is a paradox because her name symbolizes new life, but death at the same time (feel free to think of some play on words [Shira] kinda like some of the ones we made up in class today).

For you artists out there...

London's Mayor Gallery has a current exhibit of Sylvia Plath's collected illustrations (Evidently, she was an avid drawer). The following article gives you a glimpse of these drawings:

 Plath's Drawings

The author of the article says the following: "The astonishingly adroit drawings reveal not only the literary icon’s exceptional attention to detail, but also a kind of diverse yet introspective curiosity about the world, from nature to architecture, from intimacy to public life."

I find the drawing of the heels especially interesting, given that she titled it "The Bell Jar."

Greg: the illustration Untitled (Fruit Plate) would have served as an interesting visual epigraph for your Salinger essay. :)

The Bell Jar Themes in a Song

I heard this song this weekend called "The Drugs don't work by the Verve and it reminded me a lot of Esther and The Bell Jar.

I heard this song this weekend called "The Drugs Don't Work" by the Verve and it kind of reminded me of Esther and The Bell Jar. The part where he says "all this talk of getting old is getting me down my love" reminds me of how the idea of growing up and getting married depresses Esther. It also reminds me of Bell Jar when it talks about how the drugs aren't working because although Esther never  explicitly tells the reader, it is likely she is on psychiatric medication for her mental illness because the pills she uses to attempt suicide are "...doled...out to me, night by night..." (168).

All this talk of getting old
It's getting me down my love
Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown
This time I'm comin' down

And I hope you're thinking of me
As you lay down on your side
Now the drugs don't work
They just make you worse
But I know I'll see your face again

Now the drugs don't work
They just make you worse
But I know I'll see your face again

But I know I'm on a losing streak
'Cause I passed down my old street
And if you wanna show, then just let me know
And I'll sing in your ear again

Now the drugs don't work
They just make you worse
But I know I'll see your face again

'Cause baby, ooh, if heaven calls, I'm coming, too
Just like you said, you leave my life, I'm better off dead

All this talk of getting old 
It's getting me down my love
Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown
This time I'm comin' down

Now the drugs don't work
They just make you worse
But I know I'll see your face again

'Cause baby, ooh, if heaven calls, I'm coming, too
Just like you said, you leave my life, I'm better off dead

But if you wanna show, just let me know
And I'll sing in your ear again

Now the drugs don't work
They just make you worse
But I know I'll see your face again 

Yeah, I know I'll see your face again
Yeah, I know I'll see your face again
Yeah, I know I'll see your face again
Yeah, I know I'll see your face again

I'm never going down, I'm never coming down
No more, no more, no more, no more, no more
I'm never coming down, I'm never going down
No more, no more, no more, no more, no more
[Repeat and Fade Out]

Electroshock Therapy Works?

Due to reading The Bell Jar, I was talking about depression and electroshock therapy with my mom, and she said that it actually worked sometimes.  I was surprised by this, and looked it up online to see if anyone benefited from electroshock therapy.  A Youtube video titled "Sherwin Nuland: How electroshock therapy changed me" caught my eye.  The video is quite lengthy, but I was intrigued and wanted to post it on the blog since it has everything to do with Esther and her experiences with shock therapy.

NYTimes Critique

"Esther Greenwood's account of her year in the bell jar is as clear and readable as it is witty and disturbing".
This was written by Robert Scholes for the New York Times in 1971. I'm wondering if you guys agree that her year is "clear and readable" and "witty and disturbing". I agree that it is somewhat clear and readable and quite disturbing, but the I'm not sure I would describe it as witty.

"And "The Bell Jar" is not a pot-boiler, nor a series of ungrateful caricatures: it is literature. It is finding its audience, and will hold it". He also said this, which I completely agree with. Plath claimed for the book to be a pot boiler, but I think it is quite well written like what Robert said.

I think it's very interesting to see what critics think of the books we read in class.

-Shira

Water References Plath VS Salinger

When I was reading tonights assignment, I was struck by the numerous references to water. FIrst, when Esther is in the graveyard visiting her father, it begins to rain. She line tells the reader that she spent the last of her New York money on a black rain jacket. Next, when she takes the pills to kill herself (notice she chases them down with a glass of water) she says "The silence drew off baring the pebbles abd shells [which is reminiscent of the beach] and all the tatty wreckage of my life. Then, at the rim of vision, it gathered itself, and in one sweeping tide, rushed me to sleep." The tide and shell references in this passage remind me of the beach and then I remembered Esther's infatuation with the shore and how she had said earlier in the book that drowning herself in the sea would be the best way to day. There is also the almost obsessive comfort that Esther receives from taking hot baths. All of these connections to water reminded me of the discussions we had about the significance of water throughout 9 stories (innocence, knowledge etc.). What do you think water represents for Plath or Esther? Why is it that both Plath and Salinger used water as such a key symbol in their stories?

Lady Lazarus

“Lady Lazarus” by Sylvia Plath

I have done it again.

One year in every ten

I manage it--

A sort of walking miracle, my skin

Bright as a Nazi lampshade,

My right foot

A paperweight,

My face a featureless, fine

Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin

O my enemy.

Do I terrify?--

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?

The sour breath

Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh

The grave cave ate will be

At home on me

And I a smiling woman.

I am only thirty.

And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.

What a trash

To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.

The peanut-crunching crowd

Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot--

The big strip tease.

Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands

My knees.

I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.

The first time it happened I was ten.

It was an accident.

The second time I meant

To last it out and not come back at all.

I rocked shut

As a seashell.

They had to call and call

And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying

Is an art, like everything else.

I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.

I do it so it feels real.

I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.

It's easy enough to do it and stay put.

It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day

To the same place, the same face, the same brute

Amused shout:

'A miracle!'

That knocks me out.

There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge

For the hearing of my heart--

It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge

For a word or a touch

Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.

So, so, Herr Doktor.

So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,

I am your valuable,

The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.

I turn and burn.

Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash--

You poke and stir.

Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--

A cake of soap, 

A wedding ring,

A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer

Beware

Beware.

Out of the ash

I rise with my red hair

And I eat men like air.

(23-29 October 1962)

The Raising of Lazarus (Biblical Story)

The biblical narrative of the Raising of Lazarus is found in chapter 11 of the Gospel of John. Lazarus is introduced as a follower of Jesus, who lives in the village of Bethany near Jerusalem He is identified as the brother of the sisters Mary and Martha. The sisters send word to Jesus that Lazarus, "he whom thou lovest," is ill. Instead of immediately traveling to Bethany, according to the narrator, Jesus intentionally remains where he is for two more days before beginning the journey.

When Jesus arrives in Bethany, he finds that Lazarus is dead and has already been in his tomb for four days. He meets first with Martha and Mary in turn. Martha laments that Jesus did not arrive soon enough to heal her brother and Jesus replies with the well-known statement, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die". Next encountering Mary, Jesus is moved by her sorrow. The narrator here gives the famous simple phrase, "Jesus wept"

In the presence of a crowd of Jewish mourners, Jesus comes to the tomb. Over the objections of Martha, Jesus has them roll the stone away from the entrance to the tomb and says a prayer. He then calls Lazarus to come out and Lazarus does so, still wrapped in his grave-cloths. Jesus then calls for someone to remove the grave-cloths. The narrative ends with the statement that many of the witnesses to this event "believed in him." Others are said to report the events to the religious authorities in Jerusalem.

Plath Collaged

I made a collage! It took a lot more time than I expected, but I made it. I wanted to show how with everything we know about Sylvia Plath's life, one of the few things that sheds light on her depression is the Bell Jar. Since the Bell Jar gives us an idea of what she dealt with, I have it in the middle of the collage and in color. Some of the other images I had to make black and white so that the center image could pop.

http://www.nanogirl.com/poetry/plath.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath

http://www.peter-sheppard-skaerved.com/2012/09/sylvia-plath-hans-jurgen-von-bose/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Jar

http://anneyhall.tumblr.com/post/11952538544

http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews/category/plath-sylvia/

http://forbookssake.net/2010/08/17/bookish-birthdays-ted-hughes/

http://litpresentations.pbworks.com/w/page/18059470/Discussion%20Group%20-%20%20Confessional%20Poetry%20-%20Spring%202010

"Daddy" Imitation

For a poetry project last year we had to imitate a published poem. We were supposed to look at rhythm, rhyme pattern (if there was one), the overall mood and tone.. I did an imitation of "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath trying to keep these things in mind (mimicking the length of the poem, number of stanzas etc.)

Mirror

Mired in doubt, mired in doubt…

I desire to clout

Soundly the image peering back

At me, so much insolence

How dare you boast, how dare you flout!                                                    

Mirror, you anger me without a shout,

Shout though I may at you.

Truth is the heaviest burden to bear,

And stark naked truth the worst,

Smashing tentative dreams.                                                                            

The streaming glass of a rainy window

Reflects pale, wan. Do you think my self-doubt

Is appeased by the mark of times ago?

Out, damned spot, I in silence shout.

Out, out!                                                                                                        

Nothing so dramatic, so tragic

As the plight of the Lady

Who cried, cried, cried.

But the yearning of scraping the stain

Off myself                                                                                                     

The need for someone to help me out,

Is in my eyes, an urgent drought.

You show truths, any sleuth,

Even Sherlock, would find nothing about.

But you know me so well.                                                                             

My face betrays the surface of my psyche,

Traitor, traitor,

But though you know me

As others see, I doubt

You know the real me.                                                                                   

Expressions, expressions,

Twist in hurricane frenzy without,

Without knowing the reasons behind them,

Your all-seeing eye is lost without

My help. You are nothing without                                                                

My face to adorn yours, my light to shine on you.

I retain that little power. Louder

I boast that you do not know my secrets

Because I can hide, I can hide.

You I can do without.                                                                                    

I see your role in legend and shout.

The maiden fair as snow, whose fate you spelled out.

Tennyson’s faerie Lady doomed.

Dna ecila uoy del yartsa.

Heartless, cruel, heartless, cruel, no doubt.                                                   

Did Perseus’s use of you

As a polished shield first sprout

The ill-fated integration of you

Into our lives? You out-thought,

Out-maneuvered us all with a pout,                                                              

A smile. How dare you, mirror,

Pretend to know all, dare to air out

The surface of my secrets meant

To be mine and only mine. Did you

Take me for a commonplace lout?                                                                 

Looking at you is to many a route

To obsession until they are sick with gout

And can stare no longer

At what they so doubt, doubt, doubt—

I run, feet on fire, from that route.                                                                 

It should hardly surprise me

That you follow no matter the route.

Do you like to reflect each pout,

To incur a shrill shout

A place so common for you                                                                          

To be found? You should be used by now

To hearing others out, out.

Oh, mirror, I start to see without

Further ado, why so many fear you.

Your image never fades out.                                                                           

Like the dog’s eyes, the toddler’s pout,

You stick, a parasite, so devout

To your cause, sowing distress,

That I cannot shake the memory.

Mirror, get out. Get out!                                                                               

Perhaps it is less the imperfections,

Of face (though that causes one to doubt

One’s worth) and more the gnawing doubt

Of below the surface. Yes, I dare that route.

Mirror, mirror, I fear you will show me inside out.