- took her own life at 30 - had an obsession with death and suicide throughout her life - clear desperation / violent emotion evident in her poems
- did not conform to the traditional role of woman at the time - women don’t write poetry
- possible reasons for illness - negative vision of self/ struggle to find a valid personal identity/ loneliness, difficult marriage (unfaithful husband) and unresolved family issues - fathers death / mother not understanding her
- did this happen from domineering father, demands of motherhood, unfaithful husband?
- this idea of conscience is interesting
- received electric shock therapy - can cause memory loss / permanent brain damage - Did this make things worse? - it may have triggered the first suicide attempt
- “It is as if my life were magically run by two electric currents: joyous positive and despairing negative—whichever is running at the moment dominates my life, floods it.” - like bipolar??
- in Aerial - poetry and death don't exist without one another
- she sees death is preeminent but unoppressive
- attempted suicides; slit wrists, hang herself, drown herself, over dosed on pain killers in a crawl space but was found 3 days later still alive (felt like she had been in oblivion)
- she believed that the awful events of past are simple reminders of the terrifying human mind
- often uses events in history to explain her self and own feeling - writes about a concentration camp as if she is imprisoned there in 'daddy' (poem)
- speaks here as if her dad is the one who put her there referencing him to a german (aryan eye) - by dying no her and breaking her heart
- speaks about how she first attempted suicide to see him again - but thinks he’s a bastard for dying on her - lost all faith when he died
- imagery: tongue stuck in jaw, barbed wire, CHUFFING?, big boot, cleft?- in chin instead of foot.., bit heart in two, bones, glued me back together, black telephone root, voices worming through, stake in your fat black heart
THE BELL JAR - autobiographical fiction - themes represent those in her own life
- (the bell jar of her madness) - describes her state of being - like in a distorted vacuum - trapped in her own world - failing to connect with those around her
- learning slowly from her own madness as she progresses through life
- mesmerised by the pickled foetuses (interesting..)
- living within this terrifying world that she has constructed for herself - unaware of how it affects those around her (suicide attempts on family) - but she would rather die than live a false life
- fails to recognise her own reflection - reflects failure to find sense of self
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