October 27, 2019 would have marked the 87th birthday of Sylvia Plath but instead, she died by suicide at the young age of 30.
Plath is a renowned writer, best known for her semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, and also a collection of poems. She has become an exceedingly famous figure in the literary sphere for her extremely personal and cutting pieces of work that influenced a generation.
Plath is largely credited with the expansion of the confessionalism poetry movement. Confessionalism is a genre that is marked by a deeply personal manner of writing and often explores more taboo topics. Confessional poetry was especially prominent in the 1950s and 1960s. Confessional poets openly discussed surreptitious topics such as mental health, suicidal ideation, death, sex and sexuality. These were all issues not discussed in society, so to bring them to the forefront worked to destigmatize them.
Let’s talk about mental health, baby
Plath openly wrote about her mental health, depression and suicidal ideations in her poems. She makes explicit mention of her suicide attempts in her poem Lady Lazarus, when she says:
“I have done it again. One year in every ten. I manage it.” This is a direct reference to her regular suicide attempts, at almost ten-year intervals.
The more we write about and discuss taboo topics like mental health, the more we normalize them.
Esther Greenwood, the main character in The Bell Jar, is intelligent, goes to an elite school, comes from a middle-class family and even gets to travel; yet she still doesn’t feel okay. Esther could be anyone. On paper, Esther has no reason to be depressed yet that does nothing to change how she actually feels. Often, there is no tangible cause you can point at to explain mental illness. There can be no external reason for why you want to die except for the chemistry in your brain.
Allison Brealey, a Western University student, says Plath’s writing touches her. “She gives the reader a chance to explore her pain and also her triumphs in a way that is deeply personal, and allows us to gain a better understanding of how tough it is to be mentally ill, a woman, and to not necessarily understand one’s place in the world,” she says.
Is Plath the feminist icon she’s heralded as?
Plath has been praised by masses for being a feminist martyr following her death. A major theme in her novel, The Bell Jar, is the implementation of social expectations based on gender. She addresses the increasingly prevalent double standards that targeted women in the 1960s. For example, Esther feels alienated by her own society and pressured to conform to gendered notions, like beginning a family and settling down.
Although Plath advocates for women and mental health, her perspective is still unfortunately characterized by her privilege of being a white, middle-class woman. Time and time again in The Bell Jar, racist terminology is used.
Crystal Contreras, writer for Willamette Week, discusses Plath’s repeated instances of racism in her article, “It’s Time We Had A Talk About “The Bell Jar,” the White Feminist, Racist Literary Icon”. Plath’s offenses include saying phrases such as “dusky as a bleached-blonde negress” and “yellow as a chinaman.” Although Plath is paraded as an activist, it’s important that we remember she still wrote from the perspective of a white, middle-class woman in the 1960, where racism toward people of color was heavily perpetuated. She might have contributed to opening up discussions about other social issues, but it doesn’t erase the casual racism that was perpetuated in her novel. Plath can act as a typical example for what is known as “white feminism.”
Audrey Hykel, a fourth-year social work student, says white women react differently to Plath’s writing. “She is an icon for many white women,” she says. “I feel as if white women view her as an everyday ‘beautifully sad soul,’ in which they can relate to and often look over the racism because she is either too relatable to them or because of her mental health.”
Ashton Ellis, a Toronto resident, weighed in on this contrasting view of Plath in the modern era. “She got what she got right, absolutely right,” Ellis says. “But the usage of racial slurs tends to show a lack of fundamentals dealing with prejudice. She has value as an example for a feminist, but holding her up on a pedestal as an icon is not appropriate”
Throughout the last decade, more individuals have chosen to recognize Plath and other writers for their racist and discriminatory histories. That didn’t stop plenty of online accounts and public figures from paying tribute to Plath on the anniversary of her birthday, such as the New Yorker, Megan Abott and even Google Doodle.
How we choose to remember
Plath’s death and romantic affair with Ted Hughes are inseparable from her legacy as a writer. Plath was involved in a tumultuous relationship with Hughes that involved cheating, constant squabbles and numerous written accounts of emotional abuse. Their romance reached its conclusion when Plath took her life by sticking her head on the inside of an oven while their children slept.
Plath is often a woman defined by an abusive relationship and the extreme manner in which she died. When we only recognize Sylvia Plath, whether we are romanticizing her death or glorifying her as “tragically beautiful,” we are doing her a disservice. We should also actively recognize the privilege that she exercised and the racist stereotypes she perpetuated through her writing. Sylvia Plath is one of the most prominent, controversial and powerful voices in recent decades and it’s why her legacy continues to live on even if she has not.