Like many teenagers, I came to the work of Sylvia Plath through the desperately beautiful poetry that she wrote mere months before her death. Her ability to perfectly capture the complexities of the human experience seems almost inhuman; each phrase weaves in and out of unspoken taboos with effortless elegance, voicing thoughts that usually seem to evade description. However, I don’t think we should only remember Plath by her tragic suicide. On International Women’s Day, I want to remember the inspiring vivacity of her life’s work.
Though she only lived to the age of 30, Plath undoubtedly had an explosive impact on the literary canon. It is little wonder that she is described by Joyce Carol Oates as “one of the most celebrated and controversial of postwar poets writing in English.” There is a raw, emotional honestly in Plath’s writing: we need only look at The Bell Jar, which follows the story of Esther, a woman struggling to navigate depression in a suffocating society, to explain why people are drawn to her work. As Margaret Rees observes, “she stripped away the polite veneer” of conservative society in the 1950s and 60s, exposing the cracks that others tried desperately to paper over. It is this fearless vulnerability that I cannot help but admire.
A relentless poet
At every moment during her life, Plath’s emotions can be tracked through her endless stream of poetry. From her early poems in the student newspaper at Cambridge University to the posthumously published collection Ariel (which secured her place among the literary greats), it seems that Plath dealt with her life through her words. This confessional poetry, with its colloquial speech rhythms and vivid psychological imagery, allows for a very personal relationship with Plath. Reading her poetry feels like an intimate experience, a secret discussion which airs the innermost workings of her mind. I believe it is this uncensored discussion of the female experience that made Plath into the feminist symbol that she became after her death.
Lady Lazarus
I came to Plath through this feminist work. I knew little about her; my knowledge almost exclusively centred around her tragic end. I was surprised, then, to discover the fierce determination that seemed to pierce the poems I was confronted with.
Lady Lazarus was my first encounter with Plath’s writing. It was one of several poems that she composed in a creative frenzy during autumn 1962, just after she had separated with her husband, Ted Hughes. The title refers to a New Testament account, in which Lazarus is resurrected by Jesus; immediately, this gave me an insight into the poetic force that Plath was. She dances with death for the duration of the poem, through the autobiographical references to her own struggle with depression:
“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
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.”
But, to me, this poem doesn’t feel like one of despair, in spite of Plath’s later discussion of suicide attempt number 3. Instead, there seems to be a rebellious flair to the words. Plath simply refuses to exist within the realms of the female role that society has dictated to her. The imperatives littered throughout the poem allow us to picture Lady Lazarus as a ruthless heroine, not a meek wife. This seems to be a battle cry from Plath, ascertaining that she can can – and will – exist without her husband. This is captured perfectly in the lines that follow Plath’s autobiographical accounts:
“Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.”
If I were to sum up Plath’s poetry in a stanza, it would be this one that I would choose. It perfectly captures the misery and joy that characterised her struggle with bipolar disorder, while reminding us of the sheer conviction she had in her work. The words that she wrote to her mother on 16th October seem to ring true: “I am writing the best poems of my life. They will make my name.”
Daddy
Plath’s brutality stunned me once more when I read Daddy. Though at first this seems to be a mere reference to her father’s death (an event that undoubtedly characterised her childhood), the final declaration of “I’m through!” seems to be another victory over her husband. Not only is Plath grappling with her broken paternal relationship in this poem, she seems also to grieve the sexual betrayal of Hughes, particularly with her repetition in these lines:
“Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.”
Just as in Lady Lazarus, Plath moves beyond the boundaries that society permits, disguising her humiliation through shocking imagery. I find her ability to transcend these barriers – both literary and cultural – simply awe-inspiring.
A poet of young people
My discussions about Plath with other students highlight that the visceral emotional reactions I often have to her work are not unique. One student shared my conviction that Plath’s legacy is more than her suicide, noting that “those who study her and get to know her works realise that she was resilient and inspirational.” This student also commented that Plath’s emotional openness “provides a space to contemplate important issues”, which I firmly believe is the reason why she her writings resonate with young people trying to find their place in the world.
Several students noted the feminist aspect of Plath’s writing. One commented, “I love the way she explores the way that communities of women can be so pivotal in our self-perception.” Another added, “The way she explores power dynamics in sexual relationships from a female perspective is really cool…when you tie that in to how she links the female struggle to mental health problems, it’s pretty revolutionary.”
Plath’s use of language also seems to strike a chord with many young people: “I think there’s probably a stylistic point to be made about the comparative ugliness of her style. It’s blunt and brutal…and that’s just a whole subversion of the traditional feminine.” This point was furthered by another student, who believes that Plath “uses the extreme to describe the inner trauma which escapes the human language.”
A common thread of admiration runs through the words of all of these students. More than 50 years after her death, the experiences of this dynamic poet remain relevant to the struggles of human beings today.
It is for this reason that I think we should commemorate Plath this International Women’s Day. Though we cannot separate her work from her ongoing battle with mental health, we do her a disservice if we reduce her entire existence to those final moments of despair. I choose to remember Sylvia Plath as determined, vivacious and fiercely intelligent. I urge you to remember her in that way too.
Eva Bailey
Featured image courtesy of Megalit via Wikimedia Commons. Image licence found here. No changes have been made to this image.
Eva Bailey
Eva is a first year English and French student at the University of Oxford, with a passion for journalism. She is a proud ambassador for the Holocaust Educational Trust and Zero Gravity. She plays the flute and loves musical theatre, as well as diving into a good book!