John Howard Birss, Jr. Memorial Lecture examines the writing process and life of Sylvia Plath

Rodrigues, Jill

English

DOCS@RWU

Roger Williams UniversityDOCS@RWUFeatured News Story The Week at Roger3-5-2013Deconstructing Plath’s “The Bell Jar”Jill RodriguesRoger Williams UniversityFollow this and additional works at: https://docs.rwu.edu/weekatroger_featured_newsPart of the Higher Education CommonsThis News Article is brought to you for free and open access by the The Week at Roger at DOCS@RWU. It has been accepted for inclusion in FeaturedNews Story by an authorized administrator of DOCS@RWU. For more information, please contact mwu@rwu.edu.Recommended CitationRodrigues, Jill, "Deconstructing Plath’s “The Bell Jar”" (2013). Featured News Story. 82.https://docs.rwu.edu/weekatroger_featured_news/82Home News News Archive Deconstructing Plath’s “The Bell Jar”Deconstructing Plath’s “The Bell Jar”John Howard Birss, Jr. Memorial Lecture examines the writingprocess and life of Sylvia PlathMarch 5, 2013 Jill Rodrigues '05For the haunting portrayal of the descent into insanity that is “The Bell Jar,” author Sylvia Plath was both disciplinedenough to write 1,000 words a day and a touch romantic in penning it on pink paper.Plath stole the pink paper from her alma mater, Smith College, because “she thought it would giver her novel a rosecast,” said Karen V. Kukil, Smith’s associate curator of special collections, including the college’s collection of Plath’swritings. Kukil o ered insight into Plath’s writing process and life for the 13th Annual Professor John Howard Birss, Jr.Memorial Lecture Series, celebrating the 50th anniversary of “The Bell Jar.” Each academic year this series o ers theopportunity to study in depth a single text and to investigate why such signi cant literary works as “Moby Dick,”“Huckleberry Finn” and “Walden” remain relevant to modern readers.Perhaps Plath needed that rosy cast in order to divulge some of her most intimate thoughts and experiences in the semi-autobiographical novel that was largely based on her struggle with depression and whose characters were unabashedfacsimiles of her mother, a close friend and a college sweetheart. Famous for her confessional style of writing prose andpoetry – as well as the fact that she attempted suicide several times before taking her own life at age 30 – Plath sharedmany experiences with her main character, Esther Greenwood – an overbearing mother, an unful lling guest editorshipat a renowned women’s magazine in New York City, an obsession with suicide and improperly administeredelectroshock treatments.“‘The Bell Jar’ is one of the most powerful portrayals of madness in  ction,” Kukil said in her lecture. “She had thecourage to follow her talents to the light as well as the dark places it led.”Plath’s disciplined approach to writing certainly worked for her. On advice from a writer’s handbook, she committed toputting down 1,000 words a day and completed a  rst dra  in  ve months in 1961. She kept progress reports thatanalyzed plot and character actions – unusual for a writer, Kukil noted – and detailed handwritten outlines that revealhow she linked actions to ideas.Her inspiration for “The Bell Jar”? According to Kukil it was a 1950s article in “Cosmopolitan” magazine called“Psychiatry and Beauty” that suggested that beauty treatments will heal mentally ill women. (It was, typically for the time,written by a man.)Almost a decade before she started writing her novel, Plath summed up her struggle with depression in a letter to herfriend Marcia Brown: “It’s quite amazing how I’ve gone around for most of my life as in the rari ed atmosphere under abell jar.”According to Kukil, she felt su ocated by what she perceived as needing to choose between being a mother and wifeor a famous author.“Plath wanted it all, as it said in her journals: ‘books, babies and beef stews,’” Kukil explained. “Plath’s great sin was tobe ambitious and want more than the narrowly de ned roles for women.”While the novel debuted with a meager print run of 2,000 copies in England in 1963, “The Bell Jar” has had an enduringimpact there as well as in the U.S. The  rst American printing in 1971 earned a spot on the New York Times bestseller listfor 24 weeks, and its second and third printings sold out quickly.By the novel’s 25th anniversary, more than 2 million copies had sold, and it’s been translated into over 30 languages.Perhaps most telling is that Kukil, editor of two collections of Plath’s journal entries and co-author of a book about Plath’scontentious life with British poet Ted Hughes, receives about 500 email inquiries a year about Plath.“I  nd that most readers respect Plath’s honesty and sel essness in writing about illness,” Kukil said.That unforgiving honesty is illustrated in Plath’s description of Esther’s electroshock treatment in “The Bell Jar”:I shut my eyes. There was a brief silence, like an indrawn breath. Then something bent down and took hold of meand shook me like the end of the world. Whee-ee-ee-ee-ee, it shrilled, through an air crackling with blue light, andwith each  ash a great jolt drubbed me till I thought my bones would break and the sap  y out of me like a splitplant. I wondered what terrible thing it was that I had done.A special library exhibition, “Sylvia Plath and ‘The Bell Jar,’” is open to the public in the lobby of the University Library.Collection Development and Acquisitions Librarian Christine Fagan curated the exhibit in cooperation with Karen Kukil.It features  rst editions of the book, a manual typewriter owned by Plath, original typescripts and a certi ed copy ofPlath’s death certi cate, among other items. The exhibition is open daily during the library’s operating hours throughTuesday, March 12.Share This: REQUEST INFO  VISIT CAMPUS  APPLY  MAKE A GIFTMap & DirectionsContact UsDirectoryNewsEventsAthleticsrwu.eduUndergraduate SiteGraduate SiteSchool of LawSchool of Continuing Studies    © 2018 Roger Williams University. All rights reserved.  GMAIL AT RWU BRIDGES MY RWU IT HELP SITE POLICIES WORK AT RWUOne Old Ferry Road, Bristol, RI 028091-800-458-7144

Deconstructing Plath’s “The Bell Jar”

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Deconstructing Plath’s “The Bell Jar”

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