Lazarus' last laugh: On reading "The Bell Jar"
Sylvia Plath has always been one of my favourite writers.
Her life has intrigued me many a times. Somewhere because as a women of the 21st
century I have faced similar moments… of multitasking and balancing career,
family , private and public issues and at the same time hunting for a suitable
opportunity to hone my skills in. I read
her Daddy many years back and loved it.
The familiar circumstances of Plath , Virginia Woolf , Anne sexton have
always posed in my mind questions about intellectualism and its connection with
women.
The Bell Jar was published under a pseudonym Victoria Lucas
in 1963, a few weeks after her suicide by burning her face in an oven. A more
terrible death could not have been thought for such a beauty as Plath married
to one of the greatest writers of the time ,Ted Hughes. It is said that Plath
did not want the book to be published primarily because she thought it would
hurt her mother. The narrative is semi-autobiographical and is based on Plath’s
own reactions to the society which failed to provide her the fulfillment to her aspirations. After Plath’s
death, Hughes decided to publish the
book as he felt that 'Lucas' was not Plath alone, it was all-women who desired to
be different .As such the book has been considered one of the key texts in feminist readings.
Simone-de-Beauvoir’s The Second Sex defines the work ethics
for women. She is not supposed to be coquettish and admire the attentions of
the male eyes in the work place and as such she should dress accordingly; the same woman is
supposed to be her attractive best to please her husband in bed. A woman has to
work three times the same as men and yet the ceiling is reserved for her.
Sensitive souls merge
into depression and psychological conditions. For women it is a continuous
striving to keep the sanity intact. Not to underestimate ‘The personal is
political’ , more so when women have no homes they can call their own. A room
of one’s own, a 10’’ by 10’’ space you
can call your own. Decidedly the call is on, earn, save and buy . To be
different is no crime.
Lady Lazarus
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it——
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?——
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot——
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
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.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I’ve a call.
It’s easy enough to do it in a cell.
It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.
It’s the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
‘A miracle!’
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart——
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash—
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
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