In Plaster
By Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath
was born in Boston in 1932, and was “the daughter of a German immigrant college professor, Otto Plath, and one of his students, Aurelia Schober.” An apt pupil herself, Plath excelled in school and made a real name for herself at a young age. A poet from her early childhood until her death at age 30, the wise, creative, and genius writer left a lasting impact on American poetry, literature, and history itself.
Nevertheless, like many great artists and creative spirits, Sylvia Plath struggled immensely with mental illness. Reflected in both her poetry and her one and only novel The Bell Jar, the young woman battled severe depression, which some people today speculate as signs of bipolar disorder. Plath was also faced with the overwhelming pressures of adulthood and womanhood, which she represented in her book through the metaphor of a fig tree. In The Bell Jar she writes:
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet” (Plath 73).
At the age of 20, in the dark midst of manic depression, Sylvia Plath attempted suicide. Having survived her attempt, the young writer was hospitalized—an experience which she used as inspiration for her book. Just as the main character, Esther Greenwood, manages to recover in her work of fiction, Plath too made her own recovery possible in real life.
In the years following this transformative experience, Sylvia Plath met her husband, Ted Hughes—with whom she had two children. She also published some of her most incredible, influential, and inspiring works during this time, including her collection of poems called The Colossus, her book The Bell Jar, and another book of poems titled Ariel. These works, along with her legacy as a talented and unique poet—as well as a feminist icon—followed her everywhere, and today she continues to be regarded as one of the most important voices within American literature.
However, the internal battle Sylvia Plath faced did not come to an end; if anything, it worsened. Without proper resources to cope with her ongoing mental health struggles, as well as the collapse of her marriage in 1962, Plath resorted to committing suicide, and died shortly after in 1963.
Though many might argue that the poet was a deeply troubled and mentally ill woman, I argue that she was much more than that. Viewing her as the creative, insightful, and enlightened person she was, we realize that she was far too wise beyond her years. Plath lived during a time in which proper mental health treatment and medication was not only severely lacking, but very unsubstantial, so she may have resorted to other methods of keeping herself ‘sane.’ Poetry, like it is for any poet, was her vessel through which she expressed the deepest, darkest, and most beautiful parts of herself, and shared some of the greatest truths about life in. If we focus our attention on the messages she shares through her words, through her gift of language, we see that she was truly a one of a kind sage.
In Plaster
By Sylvia Plath
I shall never get out of this! There are two of me now:
This new absolutely white person and the old yellow one,
And the white person is certainly the superior one.
She doesn't need food, she is one of the real saints.
At the beginning I hated her, she had no personality—
She lay in bed with me like a dead body
And I was scared, because she was shaped just the way I was
Only much whiter and unbreakable and with no complaints.
I couldn't sleep for a week, she was so cold.
I blamed her for everything, but she didn't answer.
I couldn't understand her stupid behavior!
When I hit her she held still, like a true pacifist.
Then I realized what she wanted was for me to love her:
She began to warm up, and I saw her advantages.
Without me, she wouldn't exist, so of course she was grateful.
I gave her a soul, I bloomed out of her as a rose
Blooms out of a vase of not very valuable porcelain,
And it was I who attracted everybody's attention,
Not her whiteness and beauty, as I had at first supposed.
I patronized her a little, and she lapped it up—
You could tell almost at once she had a slave mentality.
I didn't mind her waiting on me, and she adored it.
In the morning she woke me early, reflecting the sun
From her amazingly white torso, and I couldn't help but notice
Her tidiness and her calmness and her patience:
She humored my weakness like the best of nurses,
Holding my bones in place so they would mend properly.
In time our relationship grew more intense.
She stopped fitting me so closely and seemed offish.
I felt her criticizing me in spite of herself,
As if my habits offended her in some way.
She let in the drafts and became more and more absent-minded.
And my skin itched and flaked away in soft pieces
Simply because she looked after me so badly.
Then I saw what the trouble was: she thought she was immortal.
She wanted to leave me, she thought she was superior,
And I'd been keeping her in the dark, and she was resentful—
Wasting her days waiting on a half-corpse!
And secretly she began to hope I'd die.
Then she could cover my mouth and eyes, cover me entirely,
And wear my painted face the way a mummy-case
Wears the face of a pharaoh, though it's made of mud and water.
I wasn't in any position to get rid of her.
She'd supported me for so long I was quite limp—
I had forgotten how to walk or sit,
So I was careful not to upset her in any way
Or brag ahead of time how I'd avenge myself.
Living with her was like living with my own coffin:
Yet I still depended on her, though I did it regretfully.
I used to think we might make a go of it together—
After all, it was a kind of marriage, being so close.
Now I see it must be one or the other of us.
She may be a saint, and I may be ugly and hairy,
But she'll soon find out that that doesn't matter a bit.
I'm collecting my strength; one day I shall manage without her,
And she'll perish with emptiness then, and begin to miss me.
(Plath 1961)
My Thoughts
One accompanying symptom of my eating disorder as I progressed through recovery was a constant, nagging feeling of being “split.” Most of the time, I felt like I was being split in two, with one part of me being my eating disorder and the other being my true self. A stern, cruel, relentless, obsessive, controlling, superficial, competitive, manipulative, being characterized my eating disorder; but it also somehow provided me with comfort and security—like a firm safety net. On the contrary, my inner self was and is a voice of reason, empathy, love, wisdom, depth, friendship, hope, and authenticity. But this persona is also very quiet and subtle, and was thereby hard to connect with during the inner battle I was fighting with my eating disorder. Despite being vastly different from one another, my ED voice and my soul were almost wedded together, going off of the analogy Sylvia Plath uses in the last stanza of her poem (“After all, it was a kind of marriage, being so close.”). Over time, my eating disorder slowly but surely began to take over my true self—physically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and even spiritually. I soon found myself inseparable from my eating disorder, so much so that I identified with it. I saw myself as what it wanted me to see in myself: the extreme weight loss, the fragility, the emotional numbness, the go-getter, the “half-corpse” as Plath so perfectly puts it. In my mind, I didn’t care if I was disconnected from my true self—from my desires, my likes and dislikes, my dreams, my interests, my passions, my depth, my inner child, etc. All I cared about was reaching my “goal” of what I thought would be the epitome of outer beauty, attractiveness, and desirableness; the sickest of the sickest and the worst of the worst, which I equated with “the best”. What it really meant was complete depletion, destruction, pain, suffering, self-hate, and a near-death experience. But my eating disorder disguised these things in such a way that I perceived them falsely: what was truly horrific became utterly terrific; what was absolutely unattainable became completely possible; and what was wholeheartedly lifeless became the most enlivening thing that I could imagine. I was split in two—but, as Plath words it, I began to see “her advantages.” I grew into my eating disorder like a child grows into their older sister’s pair of jeans. Essentially, “I gave her a soul, I bloomed out of her as a rose/Blooms out of a vase of not very valuable porcelain.” My body was that porcelain—so white it was see-through, cracked, easily breakable, with water evaporating out of it, but still the very vessel which made me a human and kept me alive. But I (my true self) was that rose—that organism of life, with the potential to grow and bloom and die and be reborn again. Clearly, I was trapped. And I was dying. My petals were withering away and so was my spirit.
So I sought health, just as a flower seeks water, rain, sunshine, fresh soil, and air to breathe. Recovery became these vital components for me. And as a lotus flower out of mud, I began to grow again. No—I sprouted and blossomed and flourished like a completely new person, yet I was somehow also the old me. But of course, seasons come and go, bringing change with them. During the Winters of my recovery, I struggled to surrender to change and let go of my eating disorder (side note: my recovery journey did in fact start during the Winter, ironically). As Plath writes, “She'd supported me for so long I was quite limp,” and because of this, I didn’t want to leave her. I felt that by leaving her, by learning to separate her from myself and choosing not to engage with her in maladaptive ways, I was losing myself and my identity. For weeks, in the beginning of my time in residential, I refused to let go of her, as “I still depended on her, though I did it regretfully.” One day, my therapist and my dietitian sat me down—on a bench in the middle of the grass—and told me that if I didn’t make changes to fully embrace the realities of recovery, I would be hospitalized. Being hospitalized is often a traumatic and horrifying event, and there was no guarantee that I would have any sort of agency or opportunity to recover by myself if I let myself get there. That was a turning point for me and my recovery. From that day forward, I started “collecting my strength” and truly fighting for my life. I began to distinguish myself from my eating disorder, noticing how much happier and more alive I felt when I engaged with the real me. I did this physically, emotionally, psychologically, mentally, and spiritually. I utilized yoga; I delved into reading and writing; I spent time in nature (A LOT); I fully participated in therapy; I took my medication; I followed my meal plan; I engaged in self-care; I surrounded myself with my loved ones when I could; I went on exposures; and so much more. But I also practiced mindfulness, meditation, mental and emotional exercises, and educated myself with awareness, knowledge, and insight. I re-wired my brain in many ways. I learned how to reconnect with my soul, my true self, and my inner voice.
It was really, really hard though, because my ED voice had been such a central part of me. I began to miss her, and she began to miss me. I mourned and grieved the loss of the relationship between us. But I finally heard freedom coming through the door, and I knew that I was home. And though my body was my house, my home was that voice within me. No matter what, no matter where I go or what I do, at the end of the day, I will always return home.