Wednesday 18 June 2014

Beyond, 'Sylvia Plath: The depressed poetress'. An epitome of passion and charisma.

I have always tried to figure out who was my ideal. An idol I always looked up to and tried to extract the gregarious skills that I wanted to master. What surprised me was I had an ideal, right from the age of 10, only to realize it to this day. At the age of 10, I came across her poem, "The Mirror" which had a plethora of metaphors relating to her personal life, which I figured out later. This intimidated me to learn more and more about her. Not just her works but every minute detail regarding this amazing woman. Maybe, it's a scorpio thing. Not all that is said can be true, not what others see is real. There is something very beautiful deep down and sadly, not everyone gets to see it. It's all or nothing. And I get to see that in Sylvia Plath.

"It's the tally of my lusts and my little ideas", wrote 17-year old Sylvia Plath of the journals in which she confessed of her judgement, her struggle with what life had to offer right from a very tender age, her high ambitions and her little endeavors.

Most critics and authors who have published and studied her journals portray Sylvia as someone who was mentally disturbed with the tragedies of life, associated with depression and suicidal records and the stunning urge to embrace her desires. Most of her works are intense and of personal experiences.
But to me, she's a whole different person. She was the extreme, always. Again, I relate to her writings and metaphors with such ease and indication that I never cease to be baffled by her personality.


It's not the depression, the deceitfulness of her husband, or unfulfilled desires as is mistook by most from her journals. It's her chimerical character that must be spoken about. Just like her metaphors, she was a soul ricocheting between laughter and tears.

In her own words, " Life has been some combination of fairy tale coincidence  and joie di vivre and shocks of beauty together with some hurtful self-questioning". 

One huge sentence and a millions emotions in the most solemn form. I seem to rightly relate to every word she wrote even though she lived at a different time. And no, I didn't have a disturbed childhood like she did or a perennial depression (what most associate her writing with) but a virile ardor to know more about her works for every word seems to amaze me, as if she could read my mind and pen down the thoughts in the most magnificent language.

Everybody does have their own little battle but she dared to write about her own, to bring it out in a form of such brilliance and figurative skill like no other. A remarkable women with such narrative quality as that of a myth of a white goddess with violent emotion and dynamic illustration that sends a chill down the spine every time she stresses on omnipotent verses.

To the left is a video of Sylvia Plath's "Daddy"
read by herself. One of her works that I adore
the most. Such vocal brilliance.

She saw her world in the flame of the ultimate substance and depth. In her poetry she had the exuberant freedom to relish and had access to depths formerly reserved to the primitive ecstatic priests and holy-men.
She didn't evict her true thoughts nor did she exaggerate the reality put presented the truth, in its purest form.







One of her lines, " Yes, I was infatuated with you: I am still. No one has ever heightened such a keen capacity of physical sensation in me. I cut you out because I couldn't stand being just a fancy. Before I give my body, I must give my thoughts, my mind, my dreams. And you weren't having any of those". explains just the same.

In more than one instant, I find myself agreeing to her in ways unimaginable. I find myself in her situations. But if at all most writers could understand her true worth and set her at a standard she deserves to be at. Perhaps, that would happen soon. I would make that attempt, very soon.
Pondering why? Because, 'I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am. I am. I am".

Perhaps you lived a little longer, Sylvia. Perhaps you offered more to the world. Perhaps I wouldn't have been this awestruck by you then. This mystery is good. It keeps the fire burning. THANK YOU.

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