Sylvia Plath gets a bad time of it from most people. She's often seen as having written the most depressing novel ever in the form of 'The Bell Jar', and as the catalyst for many teenager's suicidal angst.
However, the woman was ill, and she was married to an adulterous scoundrel in the form of Ted Hughes. For anyone interested in Plath, it is well worth reading Hughes' 'Birthday Letters', a collection of 88 poems mainly about Plath, and their relationship. Bit off topic but they convey another side to her story. It definitely dispells some of the myths and mystery surrounding her status as a lamenting depressive, as well as displaying Hughes' raw emotions; not only love and awe but anger and bitterness. In a sad way, anyone married to Plath would have been tempted to seek comfort elsewhere in the midst of her frightening disdain for life.
Anyway, so back to Ariel. Written as her final bout of poetry before she killed herself in 1963, and published post-humously by her husband. It is not easy reading by any means, it is dark, often ironic and humorous but ultimately disturbing.
These poems are autobiographical, so don't expect them to be full of flowers and pretty images. They tell stories of suicide, of love, motherhood and being a daughter... amongst other random topics. One of my favourites is 'Cut'. It is simple, it describes Sylvia cutting open her thumb:
What a thrill ---- My thumb instead of an onion. The top quite gone Except for a sort of a hinge
Of skin, A flap like a hat, Dead white. Then that red plush.
She had the knack of detaching herself from situations, to step back and objectify, but somehow turn the monotony of everyday occurence into something magical and strange. There is a beauty in her madness, a disturbing undercurrent, a fascination with the bizzare. To describe the event as calmly as though she had cut open an onion never ceases to amaze me. There is no sense of panic at the blood. It becomes a 'bottle / of pink fizz., 'red' against the white of the gauze which she calls the 'Ku Klux Klan'. This controlled truth, this ability to separate herself from her emotions, is what makes Plath so compelling.
My favourite poem in Ariel has to be 'Lady Lazarus'. It tells the story of a women who goes repeatedly through the agony of being reborn every time she kills herself. It is this blunt admission of Plath's desire to die that makes this poem so real and so harrowing.
'It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day To the same place, the same face, the same brute Amused shout.'
She is bored with life, she is bored with not being able to die. Her world is a theatre show and she is just a character, detached from the action which the 'Peanut-crunching crowd' view through their voyeuristic eyes. It is all the 'same', nothing changes, she is sick of plodding through life, death clearly seems more attractive.
This image is beautiful and so sadly bitter. I believe Plath knew she was going to die here, she wrote these poems in a frenzy, she was alive with the thought of death. Her candid descriptions of her own suicide attempts run through this poem, she has no care for the shock that the reader feels, she is simply being honest. I love that about these poems, they do not attempt to protect the reader, but that is also what makes them so explosive and potentially dangerous.
I am not going to analyse these poems for you, or go through them all. I just want to say that they are worth reading. I have given you an idea of their shock factor, their brutality, now it is up to you as a reader to decide for yourself.
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A tremendous review, despite the slightly strange title! You've done this very well, because you've conveyed a real sense of Plath's poetry without alot of confounding analysis, and have reminded me how much I enjoyed it... Must read this again soon. I was an enormous fan of Plath when I was younger, and even committed some of her poetry to memory, Daddy in particular. Sigh. I imagine I must have been quite an angsty bore at certain drunken uni soirees...! :) Anyway, this is well worth an E from me.x
Sylvia Plath churned out her final poems at the remarkable rate of two or three a day, ... more
masterworks Robert Lowell describes as written by "hardly a person at all...but one of those super-real, hypnotic, great classical heroines." Even more remarkabl...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Sylvia Plath churned out her final poems at the remarkable rate of two or three a day, ... more
masterworks Robert Lowell describes as written by "hardly a person at all...but one of those super-real, hypnotic, great classical heroines." Even more remarkabl...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Sylvia Plath churned out her final poems at the remarkable rate of two or three a day, ... more
masterworks Robert Lowell describes as written by "hardly a person at all...but one of those super-real, hypnotic, great classical heroines." Even more remarkabl...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Sylvia Plath churned out her final poems at the remarkable rate of two or three a day, ... more
masterworks Robert Lowell describes as written by "hardly a person at all...but one of those super-real, hypnotic, great classical heroines." Even more remarkabl...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
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