Sylvia Plath Wanted to Live

Sylvia Plath wanted to live. She gave hints in her writings, through her words, through her actions. Nobody took that hint. Nobody read her words, I mean "read" read! She wrote about resurrection in Lady Lazarus, she talked about Phoenix, Lazarus. If all she wanted to do was to die, then why she kept talking about rebirth that only means life! 

She tried to kill herself several times. Once when she was not able to meet poet Dylan Thomas, around that time she slashed her legs to see whether she had the courage to kill herself. Next in 1953 August 24th she took her mother's sleeping pills and crawled in the cellar. She was found later and survived but admitted of having an oblivion that could only be compared to death. Then in 1962 June she drove off a road into the river but was rescued and told it was her intention to kill herself. Then came 11th February, 1963, Plath put her head into the gas oven and finally succeeded. 

The responsible mother in her did not forget to put tapes, clothes, towels between her suicide zone and her kids' room, unlike Assia Wevill, Plath's husband Ted Hughes, the Noble Laureate's mistress who killed herself and her daughter Shura. I bet during their togetherness Hughes accused Plath of being irresponsible. He had to, because all husbands of this world accuse their wives who are depressed and have the tendency of self-harm to be irresponsible because during chronic clinical depression people lose the desire, the ability to perform the simplest of thing like brushing their teeth or combing their hair or the desire to go to work. In depression people do not even feel like having a job. Sylvia Plath was a brilliant student, a Fulbright Scholar with a high IQ of 160 and she worked as a receptionist for god's sake! But she proved herself to be a good mother and a good writer. That was enough for me. 

But she was not good at being alive. She wanted somebody to take care of her. Her poems, her only novel Bell Jar told people she was in pain, she was unhappy. Why people did not try to ease her pain? Why people did not try to make her happy? Isn't it that simple? Isn't it supposed to be that simple? If someone tells me she is thirsty, I give her a glass of water, if somebody says he fell down and scratched his knees I give him a band-aid. Yes, it was that simple. If somebody on regular interval try to kill herself I will see to that that she do not do that again. Simple. But people are generally callous. People are so engrossed with little problems of life like the favorite newspaper changed its font size, yesterday's milk got sour, sound of loud crying hampers family's reputation, friends are going to Italy for vacation, they have a better car, better make of a juice maker, stock market is crashing, diamond is not a Solitaire, anxiety of showing happiness of being in love in front of the single friends or brothers or an itchy scalp that they forget once a life is gone, its Gone. "Gone", the implication, the true meaning of this word nobody gets. If they did Sylvia Plath would have lived a full happy life with few more Pulitzer's or may be a Nobel in her pocket!

Sometimes depressed people cling to a person, if they find someone they think they like or love, they get very attached to them. This unnatural attachment or one can call it love seems to others as a sick desperation, an unhealthy clinginess, a ridiculous neediness. Plath's agitation and anger for not being able to meet Dylan Thomas whom she loved "more than life itself" as some said proves the intensity of her character. Soon after she slashed her legs. Later when she met and fell in love with Ted Hughes, she described him as "a singer, story-teller, lion and world-wanderer" with "a voice like the thunder of God". This comparison with God proves her intensity of emotion, the depth of her attachment. Having all these emotions for him, giving the ultimate compliment to the man and putting him on dais to worship is a typical tendency of someone who has no hope, no desire but suddenly getting a rope in turbulent sea to hold tightly, the saviour is here. But sometimes the grip on that rope gets so tight that the supposedly knight in shining armour feels suffocated and runs to Assia Wevill. Even a free single unthwarted man goes to so many, and here I am talking about the husband of probably the most depressed woman of the literary world desperately seeking love and care. Sylvia Plath's father left her, okay he died, and she interpreted it as abandonment. So when she loved someone, she demanded the whole. She thought this man will take away her sorrows, will fill her soul with saturated overflowing care and love. Did she get it? Who has the time to cater to an insomniac, suicidal, temperamental, generally sad person! 

Plath's son hanged himself. So it is easy to say it was genetic. Insanity, depression run in the family. If the women are depressed during pregnancy, there is a fair chance her children would be depressed too. But here one must note one thing, Ted Hughes' wife, mistress and his son committed suicide. Okay, I know Sylvia Plath have contemplated suicide years before meeting Hughes. Maybe it was her, she turned everything blue she came in contact with. But her daughter who looks like her is the lover of life. She once told a journalist that the death of her loved ones made her embrace life all the more. Okay, I get it, she got this beautiful positive demeanor from her father maybe. So, when I asked who to blame for the death of Sylvia Plath, some said nobody to blame, she was mentally unwell, she was bound to kill herself sooner or later. Maybe. But why cannot I come to terms with this fact! Why I feel that all she needed was over the top melodramatic stupid romantic love, I will bring the moon for you to see you smile like devotion, for each of your tears I will give you a pearl like care!