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Oh Sylvia,
Everyone flirts with madness
Gives it a wink or smile from across the room.
But you,
You took madness to bed
And slept with it straight off.
Oh Sylvia,
Would you be proud of the women you inspire
Or would you warn them away?
For more casualties deepen the hurt,
And after all,
There was a towel
Under your door that day.
The Bell Jar’s biographical notes discuss the accolades Sylvia Plath won during the early days of her career and note the promise she seemed destined to hold. Plath’s personal life, however, is notorious for being its own beast.
Clever people—clever, creative people, particularly—always seem the most susceptible to madness. Why this is the case, I do not know, but the connection between insanity and art fascinates me endlessly. I remain personally invested, perhaps, so that I may attempt to avoid this correlation in my own life.
Though I haven’t studied psychology enough to make educated guesses at the medical reasons for these volatile personalities, I can still try to empathize with the emotional causes.
Esther Greenwood—and, by extension, Sylvia Plath—feels trapped inside herself. Even if the outside world could reach her, Esther believes that touch would be cold and empty.
Esther’s immediate circumstances are indeed shallow and unstimulating, but she also has no ability to imagine a meaningful existence beyond her present. With no way to crack the glass of her bell jar, Esther becomes consumed as depression descends, and life becomes pointless to her.
Creative people spend a lot of time inside their own minds. Even experiences shared with others are ultimately processed, examined, and recorded for later use. The artistic self becomes the lens through which the entire world is seen, and this pressure is significant: crack the lens, and even if the inciting offense is not great, the whole individual may collapse.
Furthermore, artists live most fully when they are beside themselves with their work. The mind’s heightened environment can be far more welcoming than plain reality, but this euphoric experience is transitory. Meticulous work is required to sustain a piece of art, and the process does not always bring successful results. All artists go through periods of self-doubt. They come to question their work, their abilities, and their very reasons for existing.
The deep attachments and sensitive natures that on some days allow us to soar can also cause us to crash.
I envy Sylvia Plath’s poetry. I wish—foolishly—to have her talent and dedication, but I forget too often how troubled she was even as she created what she did. I do not wish for my mental and emotional states to mirror hers, even if her fragile psyche was inextricable from her art.
I don’t wish to give up writing because I fear the repercussions the profession might have, but I also refuse to let myself self-destruct. Volatility, I stubbornly assert, might come more inherently to some than others, and depression might be a side effect for those who have a genetic disposition and circumstantial triggers.
However, I do not think insanity is inherently necessary for greatness, and I wish to fight for my life to sway in a direction that I may achieve the latter without the former.