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In the Wake of Suicidal Writers A comparison of Sylvia Plaths The Bell Jar and Ernest Hemingways A Moveable FeastLilla Toth

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1. Introduction

The aim of this essay paper is to compare two autobiographies, namely The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. The main reason of my choice is that I am very interested in the life and art of Sylvia Plath. I believe that she was a great artist, her poems are enchanting and inspiring. In addition, it may sounds strange, but I was always obsessed with artists who had mental illnesses and committed suicide. It is interesting to find out how did these things influence and manifest in their art. What is more, Plath wrote a semi-autobiographic novel with the title of The Bell Jar, so it seemed to be the perfect choice for this essay papaer. However I was not sure about the other subject of my comparison. My first thought was Virginia Woolf, because she was also a famous and talented female writer and she also committed suicide. Unfortunately, I had to find another path mostly because of two reasons: firstly, I did not discover any autobiographical novel that was writted by her, except for Mrs. Dalloway, but I was not sure wether it suited the requirements or not. Secondly, the biggest obstacle was that Woolf was born in England so I decided to look for a famous writer who also committed suicide, but was born in the United States and who wrote some kind of autobiographic novel. After some research, the name of Ernest Hemingway caught my eye. I learnt about him during my academic studies but I did not know that similarly to Plath, he also committed suicide and wrote an autobiographic novel, called A Moveable Feast. This is how the idea of comparing the two autobiographies was born.My main aim was to find out the intention behind the suicides of the writers based on their autobiographical writings. I also found out that interestingly both of them recieved electro shock theraphy during their lifes so the question appeared in my mind: Did these theraphies have a negative influence on the mental condition of the writers? Or were they originally insane and mad from the time of their bith?

In the first part of my essay, I am going to write about the authors. I would like to look for some life-changing events or at least for events that played a great role in their suicides. After, I would like to shortly introduce the books, then I am going to provide a brief comparison of the two autobiographies, based on the contents and the titles. Last, but not least I would like to make a conclusion.2. About the writers Sylvia Plath

Plath was born on the 27th of October, 1932 in Boston. Her father, called Otto Emil Plath was a talented professor of biology and the little girl was obsessed with him. Unfortunately, Otto died when she was eight-years-old and I believe that the loss of the father figure made a huge influence on Plaths life. She was a successful, smart student at elementary school, her first poem appeared in Boston Harold during these years. Later, she carried on her studies at a girls school, called the Smith College where she started to write journals. She brought them everywhere she went, took notes and gained inspiration. During her college years, some of her writings were published in famous magazines, such the Seventeen or in the Daily Hampshire Gazette. (Steinberg)

In 1953 she won a guest editorship at Mademoiselle magazine, so she moved to Barbizon Hotel with seveal other women. (In The Bell Jar she writes about her experiences there). This period of her life was full of rush and in the end she became mentally and physically exhausted. In the meanwhile she applied for a summer writing course at Harvard University but she was rejected and I believe that it was also a life-changing moment for her. She started to show symptoms of depression and as a possible solution, she received an electroconvulsive therapy. (Cooper) The summer of 1953 was a very tough period in her life because supposedly she was not able to sleep and write. As a result, she attempted to commit suicide by hiding at a small place and taking several sleeping pills.

Later on she was treated in a hospital where she met her first lover, called Richard Sassoon. It seemed that she is starting to slowly recover, she graduated from Smith College and moved to London in order to continue her studies at Cambridge University. When she was at the age of 23, Sassoon broke up with her and she fell into despair. Fortunately, she met a British poet, called Ted Hughes and soon they fell in love with each other. They got married in 1956 and they moved back to Boston because Plath recieved a job as a teacher at Smith College. However it did not seem to be a good decision because the young woman suffered from paranoia and she believed that she is not good enough to be a teacher. What is more, one day she saw his husband with a young school girl. (Steinberg)

In 1959 the couple started to travel and explore the West and in the meanwhile Plath got pregnant. She gave birth to her first child and in the folowing years he started to gain success, as her poems were published for example in The New Yorker.

The last three years of her life was full of sad and tragic events: she had a misscarriage, and she found out that his husband had an affair, so she moved to a flat in London with her children. She lost weight and she became emotionally unstable. As a result, she put her head into a gas oven and killed herself in 1963, at the age of 31.3. About the writers Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway was born on the 21st of July in 1899 in Cicero. He spend most of his childhood in a cabin, where he developed hunting and fishing skills. During his high school years he wrote some articles for a school newspaper and later he became a journalist of Kansas City Star.

The young and brave Hemingway wanted to join the army however he failed the medical tests, but in 1918 he had the chance to join the Red Cross during the World War I. He spend his 1920s in Paris with her wife, Hadley Richardson. He wrote several stories, gained inspiration and met several famous writers, such as Gertrude Stein or Ezra Pound. When he moved back to America he became one of the founder of the term Lost Generation that refered to those artists who came of age during the World War I.

Later he travelled a lot, he lived in Spain for some years and worked as a reporter during the Spanish Civil War. One of his most famous novels For Whom the Bell Tolls was written based on his own experiences. He also spent some time in Paris and Cuba and soon he became a successful writer with a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize. During his travels he constantly took notes, wrote diaries and letters.

Unfortunately, Hemingway was also emotionally unstable, doctors claimed that he had bipolar disorder which resulted in mood swings and maniac depression. As a result, similarly to Plath, he received several electrocompulsive therapies which caused enormous memory loss. Hemingway could not bear the fact that most of his memories disappeared so he shot himself in 1961, at the age of 61.4. About the books

Sylvia Plaths The Bell Jar tells a story about a young girl, called Esther Greenwood who is probably represents the writer herself. The book was published in 1963 and supposedly she wrote it in the early 1960s. Esther Greenwood is an aspiring writer and she moves to New York in order to work for a magazine. She is having a great time there however she has to cope with some problems. She applies for a summer writing couse but she gets rejected so she moves back to Boston to spend her summer writing and studying. However she starts to get depressed, she is not able to sleep or write and her mother sends her to a psychiatrist. As a result she recives electric shock theraphy. Esther explains, I shut my eyes. There was a brief silence, like an indrawn breath. Then something bent down and took hold of me and shook me like the end of the world. Whee-ee-ee-ee-ee, it shrilled, through an air crackling with blue light, and with each flash a great jolt drubbed me till I thought my bones would break and the sap fly out of me like a split plant. I wondered what terrible thing it was that I had done. (Plath, 76)

Following the theraphy, everything goes worse as Esther hides in a beasement and tries to commit suicide. She still shows symptoms of depression but she is released from the hospital and tries to recover. However, she is still afraid that she is going to be mad again: But I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure at all. How did I know that someday -- at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere -- the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again? (Plath, 126)

Ernest Hemingwayss A Moveable Feast is completely different from The Bell Jar. The story sets in Paris during the 1920s and it is a recollection of his memories and experiences. It consists of several shorter stories, so it does not have a continuous storyline. For instance, he explains: It was a lovely evening and I had worked hard all day and left the flat over the sawmill and walked out through the courtyard with the stacked lumber, closed the door, crossed the street and went into the back door of the bakery that fronted on the Boulevard Montparnasse and out through the good bread smells of the ovens and the shop to the street. (Hemingway, 109) I believe that it is more optimistic and positive than Plaths writing.

As far as I am concerned, it is impossible to compare the content of the two autobiographic writings because they are completely different. However, they tell a lot about the writers because in my opinion Plath was more aware of her mental illness. It can be proved by the fact that in her autobiographic novel, instead of sharing some nice memories, she revealed a problematic period of her life. On the other hand, it seems that Hemingway (despite his bipolar disease and mental illnesses) prefered to write about fond memories and he shared a joyful period with the readers. I believe that it shows that the two writers dealt with their problems in a completely different way. 5. Comparison of the titles

First of all, I would like to compare the title of the two books and share the stories behind them. The most outstanding similarity between the two titles is that they are abstract and their meaning and importance is not obvious.

I believe that the title The Bell Jar is very ingenious and it fits the personality of Plath perfectly. A bell jar has an upside-down bell shape and it is made of glass. It is used for example to hermetically store and display plants or other things. In the book there is a reference for the title, when Ester says that (...) wherever I sat on the deck of a ship or at a street cafe in Paris or Bangkok I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air. (Plath, 32) I believe that it refers to Sylvia Plaths perception of life: she always felt like she was living in a bell jar, locked up in her own thoughts and emotions, abandoned from reality. She is not able to connect with other people and the world, so she is helpless and isolated and she is totally aware of it. In my opinion it is a nice metaphor, however it is made me think how awful it is to live like this.

In the case of Hemingway, I found it more difficult to analyse the title. Honestly, I did not have a lot of ideas about it, however after some research I understood the possible meaning of it. I also searched the title in other languages, for example in Russian it means The festivity that always remains with you. Actually, moveable feast is phrase that means a feast day that falls on the same day of the week each year but which has a date which varies. I also found out that the title was given by his wife, Mary Hemingway and it was by A.E. Hotchner, who remembered Hemingway saying that:"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast." The title probably means that his memories experienced in Paris are eternal and they stay with him forever.

In my opinion the most outstanding difference between the titles is that Plaths title is more negative and pessimistic, while Hemingways book and the title itself refers to his fond memories about Paris.

6. Conclusion

To sum up, I believe that the madness and the suicide of the writers have several reasons and now I am going to share my ideas. As I mentioned before, Sylvia Plath lost his father at the age of eight, which is a huge tragedy in the life of a child. What is more, the writer spent a lot of time in the company of women so these two facts may have resulted in problematic love life. She had some lovers but she left them and it seemed that she found love when she met with Ted Hughes. However, their relationship was full of arguments and drama which is not a suprise both of them were artists who are usually more sensible and emotional. I think that she was simply not able to deal with men, probably because she was not able to deal with herelf at the first place.

In addition, she wanted to commit suicide when she was younger and it was the time when she recieved an electro shock theraphy. I believe that it did not caused her depression, however it made the situation worse.

Also, it is inevitable to mention the so-called Slyvia Plath effect, which states that it is possible that there is a link between creativity and mental illness. In my opinion, this assumption seems to be true, because I heard about several artists who had similar mental problems and some of them also committed suicide.

So I believe that Sylvia Plath was probably born with some kind of mental illness (maybe it was in her genes) and it developed throughout her life. What is more, it was nourished by the tragical events that she had to undergo, not to mention the electrocompulsive theraphy that did not help at all. In my opinion these facts supported her idea of committing suicide.

The case of Ernest Heingway is slightly different. To tell the truth, I did not dive into his life as much as I did in the case of Sylvia Plath mostly because I simply could not relate to him. However I found out that he also had to face some challenging situation during his life, for example it must have been tough to participate in the World War I. and he also seemed to have problems with women.

I believe that he was also influenced by the Sylvia Plath effect because he was a very creative and talented writer. However, I believe that his suicide was mostly caused by the several electroshock theraphies that he had to go through, because as I mentioned before, he was not able to live without his memories. And as we can see in A Moveable Feast he tried to enjoy every moment in his life (especially when he was in Paris) and he wanted to rely on his fond memories.

All in all, in order to write this essay paper I had to go on a long journey and I believe that it was worth the time because I learnt several new things. Honestly, this assignment was an invincible obstacle in my eyes, but in the end I realized that I enjoyed the reading, the research and the writing very much. References

"Considering Creativity--The 'Sylvia Path' Effect."Http://www.apa.org. Web. 2 May 2015. .

Cooper, Brian. "Sylvia Plath and the Depression Continuum."Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. The Royal Society of Medicine. Web. 2 May 2015.

"Electric Shock Treatment."Electric Shock Treatment. 9 Dec. 2001. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. .

"Ernest Hemingway."HISTORY. 19 Mar. 2013. Web. 2 May 2015. ."Ernest Hemingway."Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 2 May 2015. .

Hemingway, Ernest.A Moveable Feast. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1964. Print

K. Steinberg, Peter. "Biography."A Celebration, This Is. 1 Jan. 1999. Web. 28 Apr. 2015. .

Plath, Sylvia.The Bell Jar. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Print.

"Sylvia Plath - Poetic Madness - Depression - Suicide." Web. 1 May 2015. .

Sylvia Plath." Wikipdia. Web. 1 May 2015. .