Mental Health Notes

Sylvia Plath: Glimpse Into The Writer’s Mind

by Alicia Sparks, NAMI Affiliation Leader on November 19th, 2007

Here at b5media’s Science & Health Channel, we’re switching things up a bit and doing some moonlighting. Case in point? Today’s awesome post from Lively Women’s Kristen King!

Kristen and I have several things in common - from our obsessions with Harry Potter to our love of the written word - so when I found out she’s quite knowledgeable about Sylvia Plath, it only seemed natural to recruit her for today’s guest post!

So, without further ado, I present Kristen King…presenting Sylvia Plath!

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Despite her relatively short career, Sylvia Plath is one of the most widely read and well-respected female poets of all time. Her raw, confessional style and brilliant wordsmithing make her a literary bright spot, but to be honest, I find her personal life just as interesting, if not more so.

Throughout her life, Plath struggled with severe depression. She was hospitalized and medicated several times, and continued to produce poetry, fiction, and nonfiction prolifically from a young age. Her novel The Bell Jar is a fictionalized account of her own psychological break, suicide attempt, hospitalization and treatment, and recovery efforts.

At the age of 30, after securing her children in a separate room with the windows open and snacks to hold them over, Plath killed herself with gas from her kitchen stove in a London apartment. Whether Plath truly intended to die that day is debated; the nanny was supposed to come to work as usual that morning, which would have interrupted the suicide attempt, but was delayed when she couldn’t get into the building. Plath even went so far as to leave her doctor’s name and phone number beside her. Had the nanny arrived on time, she likely would have saved Plath.

Plath’s journals are rife with detail, and her poetry equally revealing. She is perhaps best known for her collection Ariel, which was published by her estranged husband, poet Ted Hughes, after her death. Controversially, he ordered the poems in the volume he published differently from how Plath had requested, eliminated several, and added several others. The collection was later republished by Plath and Hughes’ daughter, Frieda Hughes, in a revised edition as Plath had intended it.

Until his death in 1998, Hughes held tight control over Plath’s estate including her writings. Fortunately, however, a large collection of Plath’s work has been housed at Indiana University’s Lilly Library in Bloomington, Indiana, since being purchased from Plath’s mother Aurelia and later from Ted Hughes.

There are many tragedies throughout Plath’s life, but the biggest is that despite her many cries for help and failed suicide attempts, she wasn’t treated appropriately for her severe depression. She was bright, ambitious, incredibly talented, and mentally ill. Did she fear that the creative spark would be treated out of her? Was she in denial of her serious psychological condition? Were her attempts to get help rebuffed by family and medical professionals? Did she truly die too young?

Get to know Sylvia Plath:

• Rough Magic: A Biography of Sylvia Plath
• Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath
• Sylvia Plath: A Critical Study
• The Collected Poems
• The Colossus and Other Poems
• Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams

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For more blogging by Kristen, be sure to pay her a visit at Lively Women.

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POSTED IN: Death, Depression, Mood Disorders, Resources, Sites of Interest, Theme Days, Women