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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Bildung
- Serie: The Breaking Down Series
- Sprache: Englisch
A practical guide to Sylvia Plath's works for middle and secondary school students One of the most dynamic and admired poets of the 20th century, Sylvia Plath wrote work about war, motherhood, jealousy, rage, grief, death, and mental illness that challenged preconceptions about what poetry should be about. The enduring power of Plath's poetry and prose continues to attract and fascinate a multitude of readers. Best known for her poems "Daddy"and "Lady Lazarus" and the novel The Bell Jar, Plath starkly expressed a sense of alienation closely linked to both her personal experiences and the to the wider situation of women throughout mid-twentieth-century America. With an eye towards demythologizing Plath and focusing on her achievements, Breaking Down Plath aims to contextualize Plath's work in the larger scheme of Cold War-era gender politics, debates about mental health, and anxiety about global conflict. Breaking Down Plath informs readers of essential facts about Sylvia Plath's life and explores the works of the influential and controversial American poet, novelist, and short-story writer. Author Patricia Grisafi contextualizes and clarifies important underlying themes in Plath's works while providing insight into how interest in Plath's work developed, how the story of Plath's life has been told, what we still need to discover about her, and why her life and art matter. Breaking Down Plath: * Presents a critical biography of Plath's life * Offers a thematic tour through Plath's, short fiction, journals, and letters * Explores the recurrent themes in Plath's poetry * Features an overview of the reception of Plath's work * Discusses the role of Plath in contemporary popular culture This book is a primer for younger or new Plath readers and a welcome addition to the toolbox used by educators, parents, and anyone interested in or studying Plath's life and work.
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Seitenzahl: 218
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Introduction
Chapter 1: Who Was Sylvia Plath?
PLATH'S CHILDHOOD
A SCHOLARSHIP GIRL
THE RISKS OF READING AUTOBIOGRAPHICALLY
A TURNING POINT
MEETING TED HUGHES
GROWING AS A WRITER
THE CREATION OF PLATH THE MYTH
THE TROUBLE WITH BIOGRAPHY
Chapter 2: Plath in Her Historical Context
COLD WAR CULTURE
GENDER AND SEXUALITY
MENTAL HEALTH
ON THE EVE OF SECOND WAVE FEMINISM
Chapter 3: Plath's Poetry
INTRODUCTION TO THE POEMS
PLATH'S INFLUENCES
POETRY AS POLITICS
RECURRING THEMES IN PLATH'S WORK
THE POETRY
Chapter 4:
The Bell Jar,
Short Fiction, and Essays
INTRODUCTION TO THE FICTION
THE BELL JAR
SHORT FICTION AND ESSAYS
Chapter 5: Plath's Journals and Letters
AUDIENCE AND SELF‐FASHIONING
WITNESSING THE CREATIVE PROCESS
WRITING AS AN OUTSIDER
Chapter 6: Plath's Legacy
CULTURAL INFLUENCE
THE GROWTH OF PLATH STUDIES
FAMILY LEGACY
SUMMARY
Bibliography
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1 Plath at the beach, 1954.
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1 Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes on their honeymoon, 1956.
Figure 3.2 Sylvia Plath and her mother, Aurelia Plath, with Plath's children...
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1 Sylvia Plath in her home at 55 Eltisley Avenue, 1956.
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1 Handwritten draft of Sylvia Plath's poem “Stings” on Smith Colleg...
Guide
Cover Page
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Introduction
Begin Reading
Bibliography
Index
End User License Agreement
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BREAKING DOWN PLATH
PATRICIA GRISAFI
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ISBN 9781119782384 (Paperback)ISBN 9781119782391 (ePDF)ISBN 9781119782407 (ePub)
COVER ART & DESIGN: PAUL MCCARTHY
For my son Damien
Foreword
In “Context,” a short work of prose published in The London Magazine in February 1962, Sylvia Plath discusses how the issues of her time impact on her writing. It concludes eloquently:
Surely the great use of poetry is its pleasure—not its influence as religious or political propaganda. Certain poems and lines of poetry seem as solid and miraculous to me as church altars or the coronation of queens must seem to people who revere quite different images. I am not worried that poems reach relatively few people. As it is, they go surprisingly far—among strangers, around the world, even. Farther than the words of a classroom teacher or the prescriptions of a doctor; if they are lucky, farther than a lifetime.
Sylvia Plath endures. She holds our attention, and as a result, people all over the world think about her, recite her poetry, and write articles, essays, and books about her. Her novel The Bell Jar (1963) has been translated into more than thirty‐five languages, including Braille. Yet, fifty‐eight years after her death, we find we still have much to learn about Plath the person and Plath the writer.
The recent publication of the more than 1,400 letters Plath composed helps to fuel our interest in her. When combined with her poetry, prose, and other life writing, an astoundingly prolific and diverse person develops who defies singular classification. Plath's output in various genres of writing and media of expression make her an endlessly fascinating area of study.
Patricia Grisafi's Breaking Down Plath is up to the moment. It blends historical and contemporary readings of Sylvia Plath—the major themes in her poetry and important aspects of her prose—in such a way that you, her newest readers, will understand and relate to the mid‐twentieth century's most famous writer.
Peter K. Steinberg, co‐editor of The Letters of Sylvia Plath11 February 2021
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to my team at Jossey‐Bass for its support, guidance, and assistance during this process: Riley Harding, Christine O'Connor, and Kezia Endsley. I am grateful to Maria Farland for helping make the opportunity to write a book on Sylvia Plath a reality. An extra big thank you to Peter K. Steinberg for your help; you are an invaluable resource and incredibly generous with your time and knowledge. To Gail Crowther, Fox Frazier Foley, and Li Yun Alvarado, thank you for your helpful feedback, suggestions, and notes on early versions of this project. Cristina Baptista, thank you for your insightful commentary and advice; you truly went above and beyond. To my writing group Erin Khar, Naomi Rand, and Amy Klein: thank you for providing editorial assistance and emotional support. Thank you to The Plath Society for organizing all of the Zoom events that kept Plath scholars and fans connected during the pandemic. I am grateful for the Plath community, especially Julie Goodspeed‐Chadwick, Dave Haslam, Emily Van Duyne, and Elizabeth Winder. Thank you to Jake Currie for being flexible with my work schedule so I could complete this book. To the Ladies’ Group Text—Lauren Navarro, Sophia Chang, and Deborah Schwarz—you guys are a lifeline. Thank you to my therapist, Lisa Youngclaus, for your continued encouragement. Many thanks to my childcare professional, Tashi Sherpa: Without your hard work, it would have been impossible to write this book. Mom and Dad, I am grateful for your continued support and belief in me. To all the writers, teachers, artists, and scholars continuing to bring Sylvia Plath's work to wider audiences: Keep up the wonderful work. As always, thank you to my husband, Scott Goldstein, for reading many drafts of this book and being a truly supportive partner. I could not have done this without you.
About the Author
Patricia Grisafi, PhD, is a freelance writer, editor, and educator. She received her BA in English from Skidmore College and her PhD in English from Fordham University. She lives in New York City with her husband, son, and two rescue dogs.
Introduction
When I was a sophomore in high school, I couldn't wait to study Sylvia Plath. I had been reading her work on my own for years and was excited to finally get the chance to dig in with my teacher and fellow students. In the massive Modern American Literature textbook, though, there was only one Plath poem: “Mirror.” It's a fine poem, but it's short and safe; it doesn't ruffle any feathers. Our teacher discussed its themes, talked a little bit about Plath's life, and mentioned that she “died young.” That was it.
I couldn't believe it. In a classroom where we studied at least ten Robert Frost poems and seemingly everything Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, couldn't we at least read one more Plath poem? (No disrespect to Mr. Frost and Mr. Emerson, of course.)
Today, Sylvia Plath is everywhere. Her name has its own connotation—we associate “Plathian” with anything dark, witty, and shocking. You can buy Sylvia Plath magnets for the fridge and Sylvia Plath socks for a cold night. Plath quotes make good T‐shirt designs. There is an Instagram account dedicated to fans who have gotten Plath tattoos. Lady Gaga and Lana Del Rey, among other musicians, have referred to her in their songs. A 2003 movie was made about her starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Plath is also often mentioned in films focused on teenagers. For example, in Spider‐Man: Homecoming (2017), MJ (played by Zendaya) is wearing a Plath T‐shirt. It functions as a shortcut to understanding MJ's personality: She's a little morbid, no‐nonsense, and into female empowerment.
While Sylvia Plath is now so well‐known she's actually become commoditized, it wasn't always that way. When she died, she was not a household name—not even close. It wasn't until the posthumous publication of Ariel that she became iconic. Over the years, the ways we approach Sylvia Plath's work have shifted, which allows her reputation as an integral writer in American literature to grow. Despite the near‐mythological status she now occupies across film, fashion, and digital media, Plath was first and foremost a woman who wrote. Plath viewed herself as a writer from a young age, and her identity intertwined with writing for her whole life. In a journal entry she wrote at age seventeen, Plath called herself “the girl who wanted to be God”—a phrase that speaks to her ambitious nature.
Plath had many identities—some contradictory. She was a dutiful daughter who also struggled to liberate herself from her family. She was a hard‐working and brilliant student who enjoyed parties and fashion. She was an expatriate—an American who moved to England. She was a wife who wanted to get out of her husband's shadow. She was a mother who wanted to be seen as both a loving parent and a successful career woman. And she was a person who lived with mental illness and died by suicide.
Plath has always spoken to young people, people who feel disenchanted with their world, people who feel deeply and are passionate about life, who feel like they don't belong. She taps into our rage and our joy in a unique way. When I was that disappointed high school student who wanted more Plath and less Emerson, I wondered why the teachers kept her from us. Was she too intense? Too taboo? Not appropriate for high school students? Why did we read The Catcher in the Rye and not The Bell Jar?
It turns out Plath is more than appropriate—she is necessary. In our contemporary moment, which shares many uncomfortable commonalities with Plath's World War II and Cold War upbringing, Plath's voice is more urgent than ever. For those struggling with mental health issues, she reminds us that we can choose how to define ourselves and our disabilities. For those angry about the prevalence of rape culture, she reminds us that our voices matter and that they can give us power. For those who feel like they don't belong, she reminds us that we can find our people. She reminds us that the personal is still political, that the political is also personal.
Chapter 1Who Was Sylvia Plath?
PLATH'S CHILDHOOD
Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 27, 1932, to Aurelia Schober Plath and Otto Plath. Aurelia was a second‐generation American of Austrian descent, and Otto was an immigrant from Germany. Otto's German heritage would play a huge role in Plath's self‐conception as a middle‐class New Englander.
Aurelia was a teacher, and Otto was a professor who specialized in bees. He even wrote an influential book, Bumblebees and Their Ways (1934). Sylvia had a brother, Warren, who was two years younger. This would be their family unit until Otto Plath's untimely—and ultimately preventable—death when Sylvia was eight.
Otto Plath suffered from diabetes but ignored his condition until his leg had to be medically amputated. Afterward, his health plummeted, his amputation became infected, and he died of complications due to diabetes. Otto's death would haunt Sylvia for the rest of her life.
Sylvia would later write about how idyllic her childhood had been until her father's death in the essay “Ocean 1212‐W”: “And this is how it stiffens, my vision of that seaside childhood. My father died, we moved inland. Whereon those nine first years of my life sealed themselves off like a ship in a bottle—beautiful, inaccessible, obsolete, a fine, white flying myth.” Ultimately, her father's death would shape Sylvia's relationships with men, religion, politics, and herself, and would be the basis for some of her most powerful poetry.
After Otto's death, Aurelia moved the family away from its home in the seaside town of Winthrop, Massachusetts, inland to the suburbs of Wellesley. There, Sylvia lived in a multigenerational home with her maternal grandparents. Aurelia always managed to make ends meet, but the family had to be frugal. Aware that she wasn't as financially privileged as other children in the neighborhood, Sylvia—already showing signs of precocious intelligence—became an overachiever and a perfectionist. She spent most of her middle and high school years winning academic awards and accumulating scholarships.
A SCHOLARSHIP GIRL
Plath started at prestigious Smith College in 1950 on a scholarship sponsored by writer Olive Higgins Prouty. Plath was keenly aware of class stratifications at the elite, all‐women's college. She put intense pressure on herself to be perfect. Writing in her journal on October 1, 1957, Plath addresses a “demon” who is in reality her “murderous self” who demands perfection: “Not being perfect hurts,” she writes. “This is the month which ends a quarter of a century for me, lived under the shadow of fear: fear that I would fall short of some abstract perfection: I have often fought, fought & won, not perfection, but an acceptance of myself as having a right to live on my own human, fallible terms” (Unabridged Journals, 2000, p. 618).
This need to be perfect is a personality characteristic, but it's also a value very much encouraged during Plath's life. Throughout the 1950s, as we will learn further in the next chapter, in Plath's social circles there was a lot of stress on appearances and conformity—especially for women. Sylvia, always a savvy observer of double standards, participated in many of the rituals of college life at this time while criticizing them in her writing. She went to formal dances, had many dates and friends, and immersed herself in studies and activities. Well‐liked, incredibly bright, and fiercely ambitious, Sylvia Plath looked like she had everything going for her.
But mental illness is insidious. For someone with a predisposition to depression, as Plath had, it can feel like everything is wrong and will never get better. Mental healthcare was much less sophisticated in the 1950s than it is today, and conversations about mental health in general were often conducted in hushed tones, as if struggling with one's emotions was something about which to be ashamed. The stigma of mental illness prevented many people from getting the proper treatment. Women especially, who often were dismissed by male doctors, felt disempowered when it came to medical care, especially gynecological and psychiatric care.
Plath grappled with suicidal ideation and feelings of depression and worthlessness for most of her adult life. Her mental health struggles formed some of her most powerful poems. An understanding of Plath's mental health—and how she conceived of it—is valuable to any study of her work, but we need to be careful not to pathologize her or her poetry.
THE RISKS OF READING AUTOBIOGRAPHICALLY
It is tempting to read Plath's work as purely autobiographical, as several scholars have done in the past. However, as Plath studies evolve, we now understand that reading Plath's work from a solely autobiographical perspective poses problems and closes off the work from its larger contexts. We must always think of Plath as a writer who used autobiographical elements in her work and transformed them into art. In short, her real‐life experiences informed her art—but are not necessarily the only aspects of the writing itself.
While Plath mined her life for inspiration, her work stands on its own. Plath never intended to write an autobiography; she carefully chose poetry and fiction as her medium with a few short essays written toward the end of her life. “Rather than assume that Plath is an unusually autobiographical writer,” Plath critic Susan R. Van Dyne notes, “we need to understand that she experienced her life in unusually textual ways. In her letters and journals as much as in her fiction and poetry, Plath's habits of self‐representation suggest that she regarded her life as if it were a text she could invent and rewrite” (Van Duyne, 1993, p. 5). Plath kept journals. She composed letters. She wrote fiction. She crafted poetry. She was familiar with all mediums and made artistic choices fitting to each one. To only read Plath as an autobiographical writer would be to miss out on the myriad layers in her work. Therefore, readers should bear in mind the distinction between the speaker/narrator and the author when reading, and refrain from pathological narratives and unfounded mental health diagnoses.
A TURNING POINT
In 1953, Plath's life took a series of twists that would ultimately lead to a suicide attempt. Aside from academic success (Plath was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and also learned she would be the editor of the Smith Review for her senior year), Plath won a guest editorship position at Mademoiselle magazine, which she held during the summer at its New York City offices. She and other winners were put up at a women's‐only hotel, The Barbizon, and were expected to fulfill their duties as well as put forward a positive face representing the magazine while touring the city.
Plath drew inspiration from this experience in her only published novel, The Bell Jar (1963). Aside from the novel, some letters, and scant journal entries, we don't know a lot about this time during Plath's life from Plath's own perspective. However, once she finished her editorship, returned home, and received a rejection from a Harvard University writing program she desperately wanted to take, her mental health seemed to take a dive.
Facing a long stretch of summer vacation at home with her mother and nothing to look forward to, Plath fell into a deep depression that was so severe it had physical effects. Unable to sleep, read, or write, Plath reached out for help. Her mother took her to a male psychiatrist, and that psychiatrist gave her improperly administered electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). In The Bell Jar, Plath would compare the experience to how one must feel being electrocuted and tortured. This event would haunt Plath and her writing for the rest of her life, coming up again and again as an image and metaphor in her poetry.
Plath's condition continued to deteriorate. On August 24, 1953, Plath consumed a bottle of pills and hid in a crawlspace in the basement. She was unconscious for two days, during which an exhaustive search took place throughout the greater Boston area. Her disappearance made the newspapers: “Beautiful Smith Girl Missing at Wellesley,” read the headline of The Boston Daily Globe. “Mrs. Aurelia S. Plath, of 26 Elmwood Street, said her daughter apparently left the house at 2 p.m., leaving a note saying she was ‘taking a long walk’ and would ‘be back tomorrow.’”
Plath was found in the crawlspace with injuries to her face from hitting her head. She was treated and hospitalized at McLean Hospital, a private hospital in Boston renowned for its psychiatry program. Plath's Smith College benefactor Olive Higgins Prouty helped pay for most of Plath's care. Prouty herself had suffered a nervous breakdown and could relate to Plath's struggles. As part of her treatment, Plath received regular therapy sessions, which she found beneficial, with Dr. Ruth Barnhouse Beuscher. She received ECT again, but this time it was administered correctly and actually helped Plath's depression. Plath's work with Dr. Beuscher gave her the tools she needed to manage her mental health and eventually return to school. The two of them would remain in contact for the rest of Plath's life.
Figure 1.1 Plath at the beach, 1954.
Source: Bridgeman Images
After her recovery, Plath threw herself back into college life with fervor—and started to hone her skills and develop the poetic voice that would earn her a respected place in American literature. She finished her college education with high honors and received a Fulbright Scholarship, which would allow her to study English at Newnham College, Cambridge University. She would seek further education abroad, which was not the norm for women during this time.
As an American in England during the 1950s, Plath experienced culture shock—her brash Americanness sometimes uncomfortably set her apart. Acquaintance Jane Baltzell remembered Plath seemed “totally unaware of how her American behavior and talk seemed rather comic to the British” (Wilson, 2013, p. 292). However, she was also exposed to new poets who greatly influenced her—including her future husband Ted Hughes. She had to adjust to a new way of life, a new educational system, and a new set of expected behaviors.
MEETING TED HUGHES
When Sylvia met Ted Hughes in 1956, he had published a few poems in university publications and already was garnering a reputation for powerful and violent poetry about the natural world and human relationships. When the two first met in 1956 at a wild party famously recounted in Plath's journals, she recited bits of his poetry to him. Then, they passionately kissed and Hughes snatched Plath's headband and earrings: “I was stamping and he was stamping on the floor, and then he kissed me bang smash on the mouth and ripped my hairband off…and when he kissed my neck I bit him long and hard on the cheek” (Unabridged Journals, 2000, p. 212).
Plath believed she had finally met her equal—someone who was smart, strong, creative, and passionate about writing—but the relationship was often volatile. They married after four months in a quiet ceremony and kept the marriage secret (Plath was worried she might lose her Fulbright if the marriage was discovered). The marriage was exceptionally literary from the get‐go. Plath and Hughes settled into a routine of writing and reading each other's work. Much of the time, however, Hughes would write and Plath would act as his secretary, sending out his poetry. He even won an important poetry contest that he didn't know Plath entered on his behalf. However, Hughes did support Plath's writing goals and encouraged her to write. In this way, the two had a more equitable artistic partnership than most.
In the 1950s—even in progressive artistic circles—there was still a sense that men dominated the world of work. Mostly, women were relegated to a more domestic experience: providing support for their husband, taking care of the home, and raising the children. It might be seen as a bonus to have a clever wife who would write sometimes. But Plath bristled against losing her identity as a writer to household drudgery.
