Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was an American poet and novelist known for her depressing themes, depressing life, and eventual suicide in 1963 at 30 years old. Her words, precious to her and frank, were never meant for anyone’s eyes but hers. Her husband, Ted Hughes, chose to present her diary in the palms of his hands to the world himself.

A week before her suicide she had sent letters to her psychiatrist detailing the abuse alongside his infidelity. Even if the letters were found in 2017, there is reason enough that in publishing these diaries he would just try to cover up his terrible actions to her, making her seem crazy when she had been deeply hurt by many of the men in her life. The first published run was heavily abridged, why it was I cannot imagine. If you are to strip the dead of their privacy why try and be demure about it? Even her crude and unabashed prose is poetic, citing the white gleaming towers of citadels or dreary rainy England days that seep into your bones without reprieve, it’s extremely beautiful until you get to the part where she outright admits to her depression and mood swings and outbursts, especially at being hurt, then it begins to become uncomfortable in a way that a diary is meant to be.

We cannot be dissatisfied with not knowing everything because who are we? If she did not make this known to those closest to her heart, why do we deserve such information? Diagnoses studies and overviews are too much. Her novel, The Bell Jar, was censored post-publication and banned in some areas because of “profanity and sexuality but for its overt rejection of the woman’s role as wife and mother.” If she in life was “too much to handle” for the blatant portrayal of the cruder parts of life then I do not believe society truly does care about her now. Mental health stigmatizations and denials happen far too often for people to say that society as a whole cares. She has lived such an aggrieved life that she deserves to rest without her legacy just being pain.