Several years after the end of WWII, a period that saw the American Economy soar to record heights propelled by the rise of advertising and television, Sylvia Plath emerged on the literary scene. Widely recognized for pioneering and advancing confessional poetry, a poetic style focused on capturing extreme moments of personal experience, the psyche, and personal trauma, this literary approach is renowned for its willingness to explore mental illness, sexuality, and suicide -- topics that were otherwise taboo during Plath's time.
Burdened by clinical depression for much of her adolescence and her writing career, Sylvia Plath's life met a tragic end in 1963 when she committed suicide by sticking her head in an oven. Nevertheless, her unparalleled ability to depict and utilize her inner, harrowing sorrow to capture the suppressed hysteria that ran rampant within the American conscience during the 1950s allowed her to generate poetry of great pathos and conviction. A pathos and conviction the lead to her awarding of Pulitzer Prize posthumously in 1982. Here are five lines delivered by Sylvia Plath at the height of her suffering, but also at the height of her literary prowess:
1. “I talk to God but the sky is empty.”
One of many American writers that did not shy away from expressing their skepticism towards religion, particularly Judaeo-Christian beliefs, Plath believed that the widely accepted habit of prayer was futile because there was no one above to listen to our pleas.
2. "If you expect nothing from anybody, you’re never disappointed."
Just like a brochure for any commodity, people are bound to fall short of what is expected of them so why hold them to any expectations.
3. "Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing."
In a period where someone's dignity, on how much they could afford, or own, Plath knew that the value of any commodity disappeared as fast as the money used to pay for it. Leaving us behind with nothing. Worth nothing.
4. "Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I've a call."
In an era defined by a widespread numbness clouding the American Psyche, there were many willing to go great lengths to feel real, to feel legitimate -- to feel. With some amenable to voyaging between the straits of life and death to discover some for of sublime connection to something asides from a nice car, a house, or box of cigarettes decorated with pin-up girls.
5. "I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am."
Arguing one of the most touching lines delivered in the Sylvia Plath canon from her only novel "The Bell Jar", it wasn't owning a fancy car, a mansion, or having a steady 9-5 that made you somebody but rather, that you were an individual standing with an organ behind your ribs beating with blood. With life meant to be lived the way you saw fit.
Although the life of Sylvia Plath met a young and tragic end, though few would hardly call it a tragedy of youth, Plath's words, echoing with a certain introspective compassion amidst shrouded by relentless despair, remain without having aged even as they age with the time. Remain to remind us that regardless of what we own, or how we feel, we all get to be somebody. Something we have a right to own and to feel.
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