Shattering the Bell Jar

I was in my early twenties when I began to hear rumblings about this poet -- this amazing spirit that I needed to read about, and so I purchased Sylvia Plath’s, The Bell Jar. Reading the novel was an effort in futility. Every sentence on the page seemed to be a flashback to my teens, when the only words my moody friend had say about life was that it “sucked.” This confidant of mine, from the moment that we met at the age of thirteen, was a thrill ride of ups and downs. One minute she was skipping with joy, and the next she was threatening to end her “tragic” life. Because of those memories, I had a hard time empathizing with the central character in Sylvia’s novel. In fact, I couldn’t relate to her style at all. Some years after I had read The Bell Jar, my previously mentioned friend succeeded in taking her life. Her larger than life personality and her thrill of adventure were no match for the dark shadow of manic depression. My friend’s death was violent and tragic, and it reaffirmed my enmity to those that feel that feel suicide is the only way to make a point. Sylvia was wrong; there is no art in dying.

Sylvia Plath. Mary Wollstonecraft. Virginia Woolf. Anne Sexton. What do these women have in common other than writing? They all took their own lives, and they were present during the infancy of feminism. During a time when it was socially unacceptable to break from society’s norms regarding a woman’s place within it, these women found surviving an impossible feat. In his article Suicide Among Artists, Steven Stack states, “Artists are at a greater risk of suicide, because of their higher prevalence to mental illness” (1). Women of their caliber were thought of as unstable, or mad. Their astute passion and creativity brought about their demise, and begged the question – If one is inspired and a woman, does this mean death and destruction?

Clarissa Pinkola Estes sheds some light on how passionate and creative women survive in her book, Women Who Run with the Wolves. She explains that when a woman is brilliantly talented and adherent to the image her culture expects her to uphold – she develops a dual nature as the woman is in constant conflict with her self. Where one side is hot, the other is cold. A by product of this characteristic is “sneaking.” A woman will sneak certain portions of her personality to appease the people or society surrounding her. Estes refers to this as a “shadow life.” A shadow life occurs when the writer stops writing, or the mother stops mothering. These can have both positive and negative connotations. If the mother/wife is in a bad marriage, and the sneaking leads to her liberation, then by all means she should pursue her freedom. But if the artist ceases to create because it’s what her husband or society expects of her, then she is not doing her soul justice. She will, in a sense, explode under the pressure of trying to be something she’s not (256).

Sylvia Plath is a case of a woman who exploded under the pressure of her double life. She was a mother/wife and poet/novelist. Nothing seemed to commingle within her; the artist and the wife/mother never reconciled. Like my friend, Sylvia suffered manic bouts of depression for much of her life. This is prevalent in her Collected Poems, most especially through, Lady Lazarus (244).


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.


Her message and intent is clear. She wants to die, and by the poem’s finish Sylvia wants the reader to know that she knows that no one is going to do anything about it. This poem and others like it are cries for help. She was sending distress signals and flares for anyone to help save her life, and ultimately no one heeded that call. This woman was ill, not pontificating for the suffrage of women.

Long before Sylvia was a married mother and poet, she was a troubled and creative girl. Communicating her pain on the page was her coping mechanism. A “tortured artist” is just that – tortured in life and spirit. Sylvia had suffered most of her life for reasons unknown, and the same goes for my friend. She was labeled an “emotional” girl at the age of two. And for no apparent reason other than a genetic disposition, she spent the majority of her life pining to die. There aren’t any poems to chronicle my friend’s plight; her story merely parallels the life of the lady poet. It’s been 30 years since Sylvia’s suicide, and women are still throwing themselves against the sword. But none of this is to win an argument or prove a point. Whether poet or construction worker they are women to be pitied, not revered.

Women worth reverence are those women who battled and beat the odds. One such woman was Sarah Bernhardt. Mme. Bernhardt was vibrant and alive during the French and German war. As Paris was under siege, she nursed wounded soldiers and helped where ever she could. She was a sculptor, painter, and world renowned actress. Beloved as she was by her fellow Parisians, Sarah was also a beloved mother. Mme. Bernhardt loved, lived, and created passionately. This passion consumed her very being, but it didn’t destroy her. She suffered bouts of melancholy and depression, but instead of succumbing to the weight, Sarah fought and clawed her back from shadowy depths. “Life is short, even for those that live a long time. Nothing kills except death, and anyone who wishes to defend herself against calumny can do so just by living,” said Bernhardt in regard to the constant criticism of her lifestyle (356). Suicide was perhaps an option at one time or another, but she didn’t give up.

Another woman who never relinquished her hold on life was the Nicaraguan poet/novelist Gioconda Belli. Under constant pressure from a corrupt government, Gioconda used her prestigious poet status as the perfect cover for her Sandinista alter ego. She lost lovers to divorce, execution and exile, and all while raising four children. As the masses were soaking up her poetry and prose, she was risking her life to free her country from dictatorships and fraudulent regimes. In her memoir, The Country Under My Skin, Gioconda states, “I lead two different lives, in two very different worlds which coexist within myself” (367). Going back to Estes description of a shadow life, one can surmise that Gioconda was more than successful in raging against the odds and defying the expectation of her culture’s demand of feminine submission. Gioconda endured hardships and unimaginable heartache, but suicide was never an alternative to surviving.

Suicide, no matter the circumstance, is the greatest of selfish acts. It has been defined as a victimless crime, as it a crime that is “committed” against one’s self. And in the spirit of Romanticism, suicide can be the fashionable, or the “vogue” thing to do. Let’s go back to the victimless crime. When Sylvia Plath gassed herself with the kitchen stove, her children were in the apartment. She barricaded herself in the kitchen, and did her best to keep the gas from leaking. Growing up with the knowledge that their mother died while they were left unattended in the other room would have a profound affect on their psyche, would it not? Wouldn’t those children then be victims for the rest of their lives? A victim is one who suffers an injustice at the hand of another – Sylvia Plath’s children, from the moment of her death, joined the ranks of the wounded. As for entertaining the notion that suicide is a fad or a craze, there is nothing mystical or chic about it. A starlet’s naked body stretched gaunt and pale in a bath crimsoned by her life’s blood should not represent a romantic image, nor should it exist as the embodiment of a strong, feminine icon.

As a woman, I have only sentiments of pity for Sylvia Plath and those women who have pursued the avenue of killing one’s self. But my compassion stops when suicide is coupled with ideologies. Feminism is the radical notion that a woman is deserving of the same rights as men. Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf, Anne Sexton, as well as Sylvia Plath were at the forefront of the movement. Their artistic works are hauntingly eloquent, but it is the manner with which they died that leaves their words empty and shallow. Suicide is a weak and selfish death, which contradicts the strength of their inscribed convictions. I don’t love my friend any less, but any respect I had for her as woman diminished when she pulled the trigger. There in lies the rub, how can I tender my respect when actions speak louder than words?

Works Cited
Belli, Gioconda. The Country Under My Skin. New York: Anchor Books, 2003. Print.
Bernhardt, Sarah. My Double Life. Trans. Victoria Tietze. Albany, NY: New York U, 1999. Print.
Estes, Clarissa Pinkola. Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. New York: Ballatine Books, 1992. Print.
Plath, Sylvia. The Collected Poems. Ed. Ted Hughes. New York: HaperCollins, 1981. Print.
Stack, Steven. “Suicide Among Artists.” The Journal of Social Psychology. 137.n1 (1997): 129(2). Academic OneFile. Web. 20 Oct. 2009.