Angélica E. Tinajero Vargas
HL VII
“I thought how strange it had never occurred to me before
that I was only pure happy until I was nine years old.”
Sylvia Plath. The Bell Jar
The Life of Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath was born in Boston Massachusetts in 1932. Daughter of Aurelia
Schober Plath, a first-generation of Austro-American, and of Otto Emile Plath, who
was born in Grabow, Germany. He worked as a professor of biology and German
at Boston University; it was there that he met Sylvia´s mother while she was
studying her Masters degree and during Otto Plath´s Middle High German class
(Connie Ann Kirk Sylvia Plath: a biography p. xvii). A year after Sylvia´s brother
Warren was born the Plath family moved to Winthrop Massachusetts, to be close
to Aurelia´s parents because the health of Otto was in decay. In 1937 Sylvia started
the first grade at Sunshine School and a year after continued her education at
Annie F. Warren Grammar School, where she developed a great talent for writing
and painting; at the age of eight Sylvia had published her first poem in the Boston
Herald's children's section, and won an award for her paintings from The
Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in 1947 (Kirk, p.23, 32).
For Sylvia, there were two events that marked both her personality and her poetry.
The first one being the arrival of The Great New England Hurricane in 1938 when
she was five; the poet “never forgot enduring and surviving her first and only
natural disaster”(Kirk. P. 18). In her poem “The Disquieting Muses” she would
link the storm with the birth of her artist self and of her mother´s inadequacy
(Edward Butscher. Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness P. 1).
The second event, and the most important one, where the personality and the life
of Silvia Plath were permanent damaged, was the dead of her father Otto on
November 5, 1940, just nine days after her eighth birthday. His dead “left an
imprint upon her imagination that time did not erase or soften” (Butscher, P.1),
and his memory became essential for her poetry in varying disguises, “as icon and
divinity, as totem and demon, and as ultimate modern monster, a Nazi `panzes
man.’“ (Butscher, P.1) It was no accident then that Sylvia´s poetry emerged soon
after Otto´s death, “being the only defense available to her […][;] public approval
became a substitute for lost parental love”(Butscher, P. 9). After the death of his
father Sylvia developed an unhealthy relationship with her mother. In her poetry
as well as in her prose, Plath shows “negative feelings too long held in check for
fear of losing her mother´s essential affection” (Butscher, P. 9), in The Bell Jar as in
poems like “ The Disquieting Muse” and “Medusa”, for example.
After Otto´s death, Aurelia moved with Warren, Sylvia and her parents to
Wellesley where Sylvia returned to school. In 1949 she became editor of the high
school newspaper The Bradford, and wrote a column for The Townsman; the same
year she published her first short story called “And Summer Will Not Come
Again” and a Poem “Bitter Strawberries” for Seventeen and Christian Science
Monitor publications respectively. In June of 1950 she won a scholarship to Smith
Collage in Northampton, Massachusetts. Three years after, in 1953, Sylvia
committed her first attempt to suicide after learning that her application for
Harvard´s fiction writing course had been rejected; thanks to this she was admitted
at McLean Hospital in Belmont and spent six months in psychiatric care,
recovering successfully after her hospitalization. In June of 1955 the writer
graduated summa cum laude from Smith Collage.
In October of the same year she went to Newnham Collage, Cambridge, on a
Fullbright Scholarship, where in February of the following year she met poet Ted
Hughes at a party and they began a passionate relationship, marrying on June 16,
1956. As a result of her marriage with Hughes, Sylvia Plath had two children;
Frieda Rebecca Hughes, who was born the same year that The Colossus and other
Poems was published, and also that Sylvia started to work in her autobiographic
novel The Bell Jar, and Nicholas Farrar Hughes. Before having her second child,
Sylvia Plath had a miscarriage, event that would later be reflected in her poetry.
In June of 1962 Sylvia commited her second attempt of suicide crashing her car, a
month after she discovered Hughes´ affair with the poet Assia Wevill; this caused
their separation in September of the same year. As a result of the separation Sylvia
Plath had a burst of creativity that resulted in at least 26 of the Ariel poems; she
finished such collection that same winter, with a total of 41 poems.
In January of 1963 her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar was published under the
pseudonym of Victoria Lucas. On February 11, 1963 the author, who was 30 years
old, committed suicide in her apartment in London, where William Butler Yeats
used to live, placing her head in an oven while her young children were asleep,
sealed away by Sylvia herself, in their bedroom. The body of Sylvia Plath was
discovered by the nurse that used to visit her according to the orders of her friend
Dr. Horder, who was aware the depressive condition of the poet. (Kirk, Pgs. xvxxi,104).
Sylvia Plath, the Art of Tragedy
I will like to share these links where you could find almost the complete works by
Sylvia Plath: <<http://www.stanford.edu/class/engl187/docs/plathpoem.html>>
<< http://www.sylviaplath.de/>>
The intensity with which Sylvia Plath wrote made of her one of the most fruitful
American authors. Publishing her poems since the age of eight until her dead at
the age of thirty, she managed to make of her tragic life a valuable resource with
which to create a prolific collection of poems and prose.
After her death her ex-husband Ted Hughes and her mother Aurelia Schober
where the ones to inherit Plath´s writing works, publishing several of her
unknown poems and diaries. It was in one of these diaries that Hughes was
condemned by Plath; it was this same diary that Hughes attempted to destroy by
burning it. There is of course great controversy against Hughes, not only because
feminists insist that it was because of him that Plath committed suicide –even
though she had a depressive condition and two other previous attempts against
her life- but also because Assia Wevill, Hughes´ companion, killed herself and her
daughter Shura in 1969, thus triggering the speculations against Hughes behavior
towards them and about “domestic cruelty” (A. L. Alvarez. 'I failed her. I was 30
and stupid' online1).
Her poetry is closely related to the “confessional movement” developed by Robert
Lowell in the decade of the 1950´s; this movement represented “an important
change in the way the American poetic mainstream approached the writing poetry.
The poems were presented in the first-poetic voice with little apparent distance
between the speaker and the poet; they were highly emotional in tone,
autobiographical in content, and narrative structure.” (Christopher Beach The
Cambridge Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Poetry P. 154-155). The poets
that belong to this movement have as their common ground their disastrous lives.
This was the primordial fact that attracted the attention of critics, scholars and
readers (Beach, P.155). M.L. Rosenthal describes confessional poetry “as
autobiographical, therapeutic (`soul´s therapy’ and `self-therapeutic’) […] featuring
uncompromising honesty’.”( Jo Gill The Cambridge Introduction to Sylvia Plath P. 20)
Sylvia Plath herself spoke about the influence of her one time mentor Robert
Lowell and his publication Life Studie; likewise, she spoke about Ann Sexton´s
influence in her poetry (Gill, P.23).
Plath´s style depicts not only her tormented live, but also her management of
themes that during her life and after her death caused controversy. Many of her
1
< http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2000/mar/19/poetry.features> visited 09/10/2011
poems deal with natural images, color and symbolism, but of course these
elements were not the ones who were criticized, but her use of hostile and violent
imagery, which is what shocked her readers.
For the analysis of her poetry I decided to choose just one of her most controversial
poems –because of the extension-, and finally to add a recording of her reciting her
poem “Daddy”.
“Lady Lazarous” was published posthumously in her collection of poems Ariel in
1965, two years after her suicide. The themes in the poem lead to a variety of
readings and, as confessional poetry, deals narrowly with the author's life and
conflicts. The analysis of the poem, then, will be made according to two possible
readings: the first one will focus on the position of the poet as a woman in a period
of feminine oppression and her attempt to break free. The second is based on the
reading of Plath´s poem as a confession of her suicide attempts. Finally, I´m going
to give you some elements, in order to encourage one more reading that deals with
the conflict of the author about her Polish-German roots and her vision of the
German-Jewish conflict.
Lady Lazarus
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it-----
5
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My featureless, fine
Jew linen.
10
15
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
20
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.
25
30
What a million filaments.
The Peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand in foot -----The big strip tease.
Gentleman , ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
35
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
40
45
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.
50
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:
55
60
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing 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
65
Or a piece of my hair on my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
70
75
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.
80
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
The women´s role in “Lady Lazarus”
In spite of the fact that Sylvia Plath was educated and nourished with varied
literature and culture, she developed as a writer and mother in “a culture which
had few ideas about how to combine the apparently mutual exclusive roles.” (Gill,
15) On several occasions Plath dealt with problems of acceptance of the new role a
woman within American society, “with the either/or-ness of motherhood and
career, purity and sexuality, domesticity and education.” (Pat Macpherson,
Reflecting on The Bell Jar, quoted by Jo Gill P. 15).
In “Lady Lazarus” it is evident from the beginning of the poem that the poetic
voice enjoys a superiority of power; this we understand because of the voice
employed in the statement “I´ve done it again” (line 1) and as the biblical Lazarus,
she comes back from the death once again -the third time to be more precise-, but
in the second stanza with the poetic voice’s declaration “A sort of walking miracle,
”(line 4) we could read the line as a statement of the oppression she suffers, i.e. she
is in a way a walking dead, who has no feelings of her own, and that in the eyes of
others has to be perfect with a “skin/ Bright as a Nazi lampshade,” (line 5) and a
“featureless face” as a “fine Jew linen” (lines 8-9). She has to hide the emotional
traces of her sufferings; that is why she asks, maybe to herself or to the reader, “Do
I terrify?/ The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?” in lines 12 and 13. Within
the next lines she said that those traces of pain “Will vanish in a day” and “Soon,
soon the flesh/ The grave cave ate will be/ At home with [her] ”(lines 15-18), to
eventually return to be the “smiling woman.” (line 19) that she used to be in the
eyes of society.
For the stanzas 10, 11 and the first line of the 12th, the poetic voice describes a “big
strip tease.” Performed by “Them” and as Jo Gill explains “Although she assumes
the voice of defiant bravado, [at the beginning of the poem] […] she is coerced into
performing, while seeming to authorise and enjoy, a spectacular femininity.” [sic]
(Gill P. 60).
With the affirmation “Dying/ Is an art, like everything else./I do it exceptionally
well. “ of the 15th stanza, she recognizes that she is a disguise of the modern
women; she could do everything well in her home and could manage her
personality, hiding what should not be seen, even though she knows that “it feels
like hell” (line 46). Stan Smith argues that when the poetic voice affirms “I am
your opus, /I am your valuable, /The pure gold baby /That melts to a shriek.”
(stanzas 23-24) it talks about women as “a collective patriarchy” (quoted by Jo Gill
P. 59) that is conscious of its oppression.
The last two stanzas are the final declaration –in a sort of volta, depicting in a burst
of strength- of the poetic voice rising from the ashes to “eat men like air” (line 85),
and even taking the trouble to warn God and Lucifer, which are obviously male
figures, with the polite use of “Herr God, Herr Lucifer”, the German word
corresponding to “Mr.” (Oxford Dictionary of English) to be aware of her
resuscitation.
In this first reading we could notice the feminist point of view, the renewal of
women after being under the control of men and of society. “Lady Lazarus” as her
best-known “narrative rite of rebirth” deals with the construction of women and
presents “a resurgent subject, rising, renewed from the ashes.” (Gill, P.59)
Plath´s confession of her suicide attempts
(In order to do this presentation shorter, I will quote only the number of the line
corresponding to the reference)
It is almost impossible to attempt to analyze Plath´s poetry without taking into
account her life and the influence that it has over her works. As we have seen
previously, Sylvia Plath attempted several times against her life and according to
many critics this poem could be seen “as an allegory of a psychotherapeutic
return” (Gill, P.60). In the first stanza (lines 1-3) the poetic voice, that we easily
relate to Sylvia Plath herself, begins with the proclamation, in a “rueful recognition
of error” (Gill, P. 58), her latest –and futile- attempt of suicide. Also for the second
and third stanzas the description of the results of this attempt in her body are
present; for example in line 4 the poetic voice thinks on herself as “A sort of
walking miracle” but she knows that after some time she will recover and turn
back into the same “smiling woman” (line 19) that she used to be.
The playful irony which is used by Plath in order to describe her “failed” attempts
against her life is present in the 15th stanza, where she connects her ability to write
and her academic past with her final and successful suicide. Plath´s burden of
being alive is also present in the poem, with lines that make reference to her
feelings by distinguishing “the same place, the same face,” (line 53) that “knocks
[her] out” (line 56), and also by the “eyeing of [her] scars,” and “the hearing of
[her] heart” (lines 58,59). But it is through the repetition of words (for instance: the
“charge”, the “very large charge”) that we could notice how the author tries to
express her pain.
The repeated efforts to save her life made Plath depict her doctor as her enemy; she
becomes the “thing” to be proud of, as her doctor´s success. In stanza 23 she
declares that she is the “opus” a “valuable, […] pure gold baby” that in the end
will “melt to a shriek.” The opposition between Doctor and Enemy that Plath
makes in stanza 22 is clarified with the second to last image when, again, the poet
addresses her awareness to God and Lucifer; she is making the comparison
between her Doctor as God because he saved her from (the comparison with God
would be positive); and finally between the Doctor Enemy and Lucifer because
despite the fact that she does not “underestimate [his] great concern” (line 72) in
bringing her back to life she cannot forget that he is condemning her to hell by
letting her live.
The final stanza could be read as an image of her as a phoenix that, as an
announcement, lets him know (to her “Herr God, Herr Lucifer” in line 79) what
her actions will be, now that she is alive she will consume men in revenge for their
actions against her will, and just as a phoenix consume air.
Sylvia Plath and her vision of the Nazi Holocaust
During Plath´s period and even after her death many of her poems caused
controversy because, even when she had no personal contact with the conflict, the
Holocaust images are presented in her works not only as an association between
her oppression as a woman and that which Jewish people suffered during World
War II, but also as “an act of identification, of total communion with those tortured
and massacred.” (Gill, P. 61) Authors like Irving Howe (quoted by Jo Gill P. 61)
describes her use of Holocaust allusions as “illegitimate[…] something monstrous,
utterly disproportionate.” But in her defense authors like James E. Young (Gill P.
61) are of the idea that “she was not alone in her use of Holocaust imagery […] she
internalizes and reproduces motifs, images and memories which were part of the
collective consciousness or cultural memory of her time.”
If you are interested in this last fact, I would like to provide some ideas for you to
comment, such as:
1. What do you think about Plath’s statement about: “my skin / Bright as a
Nazi lampshade” (line 2); “A cake of soap, / A wedding ring, / A gold
filling” (lines 76-78)?
2. Do you consider that Plath makes an allusion to the experiments performed
on Jew people?
3. Would you agree on that Plath’s use of the Holocaust imagery is indeed
excessive, or rather useful and justified?
4. Can you relate “Daddy” (the poem provided in the video) with the use of
references towards the Holocaust in “Lady Lazarus”?
Here is the link where you could find the recording of Sylvia Plath reading her
poem “Daddy”:
http://www.openculture.com/2011/06/sylvia_plath_reads_daddy.html
Work cited:
Beach, Christopher. The Cambridge Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Poetry
Ch. 8 “The confessional moment” [154-158] United Kingdom. Cambridge
University Press. 2003
Butscher, Edward. Sylvia Plath: method and madness. CH. 20. United States of
America. Schaffner Press. 2003.
Kirk, Connie Ann. Sylvia Plath: a biography United States of America. Greenwood
Press, 2004.
Gill, Jo. The Cambridge Introduction to Sylvia Plath United Kingdom. Cambridge
University Press. 2008.
Rollyson, Carl. American Bipgraphy “Sylvia Plath” United States of America. [s.i]
2006