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?