I had heard of Sylvia Plath of course, and knew of The Bell Jar, and her tragic story but never bothered to read the book. I made the mistake of judging a book, not by it's cover but by an assumption I had. That because she was depressed, the book was to be a long, sad, winding tale. Couldn't be farther from the truth! My sister is reading a bunch of Sylvia Plath books for her Psychology class and I got curious one day last week and started reading. Esther Greenwood, the protagonist, is someone you can sympathize with. Even if you don't feel like killing yourself, everyone knows what it's like to worry about the future. The Bell Jar follows Esther Greenwood through her descent into insanity, or something like that. She constantly felt like she was looking at the world as if through a bell jar.
The Bell Jar is supposed to be semi autobiographical. I believe this, because I was reading some of her diary entries in The Journals of Sylvia Plath and both women went through similar experiences. Even little details for Esther were things I read about in her private journal. She was 18 at the time she wrote them -- her ability to tell a story, to draw you in and her use of words are astounding. To know that she doubted herself...man! It sounds funny to me that I say I can relate to Sylvia Plath, yet I have no desire to kill myself. I feel like those thoughts consumed her. She saw it as an out, as the means to end her pain. I don't believe in easy way outs. God doesn't give us anything we can't handle. It's a shame that her life ended at such a young age because she had so much potential; I would have loved to read more from her. I didn't read much of Plath's poetry because I am not a poem person, really. (I remember dreading Poetry 101 a few years ago).
An example of one of her poems that caught my eye:
To a Jilted Lover
Cold on my narrow cot I lie
and in sorrow look
through my window-square of black:
figured in the midnight sky,a mosaic of stars
diagrams the falling years,
while from the moon, my lover's eye
chills me to death
with radiance of his frozen faith.
Once I wounded him with so
small a thorn
I never thought his flesh would burn
or that the heat within would grow
until he stood
incandescent as a god;
now there is nowhere I can go
to hide from him:moon and sun reflect his flame.
In the morning all shall be
the same again:stars pale before the angry dawn;
the gilded cock will turn for me
the rack of time
until the peak of noon has come
and by that glare, my love will see
how I am still
blazing in my golden hell.
Kinda morbid but hey, she did die by sticking her head in an oven. I give her credit for her dry wit. I found the book to be kind of comical at times.
The Bell Jar is supposed to be semi autobiographical. I believe this, because I was reading some of her diary entries in The Journals of Sylvia Plath and both women went through similar experiences. Even little details for Esther were things I read about in her private journal. She was 18 at the time she wrote them -- her ability to tell a story, to draw you in and her use of words are astounding. To know that she doubted herself...man! It sounds funny to me that I say I can relate to Sylvia Plath, yet I have no desire to kill myself. I feel like those thoughts consumed her. She saw it as an out, as the means to end her pain. I don't believe in easy way outs. God doesn't give us anything we can't handle. It's a shame that her life ended at such a young age because she had so much potential; I would have loved to read more from her. I didn't read much of Plath's poetry because I am not a poem person, really. (I remember dreading Poetry 101 a few years ago).
An example of one of her poems that caught my eye:
To a Jilted Lover
Cold on my narrow cot I lie
and in sorrow look
through my window-square of black:
figured in the midnight sky,a mosaic of stars
diagrams the falling years,
while from the moon, my lover's eye
chills me to death
with radiance of his frozen faith.
Once I wounded him with so
small a thorn
I never thought his flesh would burn
or that the heat within would grow
until he stood
incandescent as a god;
now there is nowhere I can go
to hide from him:moon and sun reflect his flame.
In the morning all shall be
the same again:stars pale before the angry dawn;
the gilded cock will turn for me
the rack of time
until the peak of noon has come
and by that glare, my love will see
how I am still
blazing in my golden hell.
Kinda morbid but hey, she did die by sticking her head in an oven. I give her credit for her dry wit. I found the book to be kind of comical at times.
one of my favorite books of all time. it's funny because my mom read it when she was around the age that i read it. it really transcends time!
ReplyDeletePS there's more to a suicidal person than just...being suicidal. i find sylvia plath fascinating!
Oh yeah, absolutely, I mean I only touched one aspect of why she wanted to kill herself. I wanted to mention it because throughout her journals and TBJ, you can see she has a fascination about the different ways in which you can die.
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