Trigger warning: this piece mentions topics of suicide, self-harm, depression
And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter- they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
At the young age of 15, I found myself enchanted by the outpouring of words. Troubling as might seem, the words sang. They sang with ludicrous lyricism. It was hard to not listen, hard to ignore the rhythm. I don’t think I get what she meant. I don’t think I still do. But it makes me curious. Plath has always had that on me.
“I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)” (Mad Girl’s Love Song)
Sylvia Plath’s battles with mental illness, most notably depression and bipolar disorder, strongly influenced her writing. She often used her personal experiences as poignant metaphors for her protagonists. In one of her poems, Tulip, she writes, “I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted to lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.” These words capture the profound sense of emptiness that can accompany mental disease and resonate with readers who have encountered similar feelings.”
“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”
Ever since I have thought of writing, I’ve thought of Plath. The path that writing leads me on and the path that writing leads her to. Something in the way Plath wrote filled an absence in the mind. I’ve always found the idea of presence and absence fascinating, guiltily so. Some of Plath’s strongest confessional feminist poetry has been a source of pondering, a site of many unwelcome reflections. Plath writes in one of her Journals, “I envy the man for his physical freedom to lead a double life-his career, and his sexual and family life. I can pretend to forget my envy; no matter, it is there, insidious, malignant, latent.” (Journals 35) Such a strong presence of words with a murky absence in the center, that of the author herself.
Albert Camus in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, writes “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.” It is the question of the absurd and Camus believes it is the one question we must ask of ourselves. Plath, like Camus, was overcome with the idea of finding meaning in a world that seemed devoid of it. Although eventually, Camus does come to terms with the possibility that one can choose to live despite the absurdity by embracing it and finding meaning in the act of rebellion against it, Plath seems to have found no consolation in absurdity.
The line “Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well” from “Lady Lazarus” reflects her complex relationship with the idea of suicide. Her suicide has, in turn, become a central element of her legacy, bringing in several layers of uneasiness. What are the ethics of reading Plath after you know her story? How do you navigate the blurred-out shape of Plath that lives in your head? What position do you occupy as you appreciate such distraught art- are you still a reader, a witness to her grief, a transgressor? What does Plath lead you to? It’s a very uncomfortable position to hold, like fitting into shoes two sizes too small. I’m not sure there is a way to read Plath but at your own expense. It will always cost you something to read, know, and care about. I’m sure it is not in vain.
I leave you with one of Plath’s boldest meanest lines: “Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.”