The Poet as a Solipsist: A Reading of Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath, one of the mightiest and beautiful pens in the modern age, was a poet whose life was filled with pain, passion and mystery. Her life, both professional as well as personal, is very clearly depicted in her poems. She was driven to a state of chronic depression due to the circumstances and events of her life, leading to her repeated attempts at suicide, with the third attempt finally taking her life. Her two flawed attempts helped her come up with the poem Lady Lazarus in which she calls herself Lady Lazarus as like the Biblical Lazarus she had also come back to life after almost succumbing to death.

In this paper I wish to explore the solipsistic state of existence that Sylvia experiences and exemplifies as a poet with a turbulent inner world. Before trying to understand the poem The Soliloquy of the Solipsist let me first find out who or what a solipsist is. A solipsist can be called a person who believes in the surety only of one’s own mind’s existence i.e. nothing else matters than oneself. It comes from the Latin term “solus” (alone) and “ipse” (self). Solipsism though is a philosophical idea is still considered something which is debatable. As it is very easily criticised and often called an unwanted consequence, it is a “reductio ad absurdum”.

Now Sylvia Plath in her poem the “soliloquy of the solipsist”, tells of her power as a solipsist. The entire poem could be called a first person narrative, and all stanzas begin with the letter “I”. Sylvia begin her poem by saying that “I walk alone; The midnight street” through this she says that she is walking alone in the midnight street, and when she walks the road itself “Spins itself from under my feet;” the description she gives here suggest here that it is she herself that makes her way or path in life. Then she tells that with her “whims” all the houses that mark her way disappear. She tell us with this that her power of destruction is as effective and powerful as her power of creation. She can create and destroy anything at her whim. And this makes her “God” or someone who is absolute. And she (the speaker) in this case is the/a solipsist, as she does not care or rather denies any one else ad says that she is the most powerful entity in the universe. This is later proved with the lines that follow in the poem. The next stanza tells us of the “puppet people” are dangled by her “look’s leash”. And they are not even aware that they are being overseen by it (the speaker), nor do they know that just with a blink of her eye they can fall and die. With these lines we can consider Plath as a megalomaniac, which is a person’s false belief in oneself; where the person claims that they are god. Megalomania is something that is considered quite unnatural and very much an unwanted element in one’s personality. As megalomania can lead to the person engaging in acts of violence as he believes that the person is god and is above and beyond all. This is not the case in real life, as one has to adhere to certain rules that govern the land as he himself is a part of it or is a resident of that place. But Sylvia Plath’s megalomania could be termed correct as she has the power of creation and whatever she has created, she can destroy with least effort. Through the stanza we also find out that the creation of hers has certain autonomy, but that autonomy is still restricted by her leash as the moment she wishes she can destroy her creations. Which shows us that she indeed has power to create and destroy, and the last lines of the stanza tells us that she is like the real god which any believer might believe in, as like any artificial god, she/the speaker controls, or has the last word with regard to their life or death, but does not directly intervene in their lives. This is

something that is very similar to the “god concept” of people regardless of which religion they come from. In all religions god however powerful he is does not directly involve in people’s lives, god on the other hand works on a principle or karma or “pleasure-pain” (used not in the Freudian sense) i.e. do good and appease gods you will get pleasure, if not pain.

She then talks of her power’s being affected by her mood, for when she is happy she says she gives “grass its green”, “Blazon sky blue”, “endow the sun with gold;” this can show that when she is happy or elated she has the power to create something that is quiet beautiful and bright. In the following lines she gives us a different picture altogether; she says that in winter (or hardship, as winter was/is never called pleasant) she holds absolute power to “boycott any colour and forbid any flower to be” with this she is saying that in her sadness or when she is in grief she can destroy anything with her words. She also says that she can even boycott or vouch against any beauty when she is sad through her words. Here again the power and liberty a poet or any writer (creative as well as some non-creative) has.

The next paragraph is a paragraph with some conflict or controversy in the entire poem as it alone can be read as another person. To be more precise I would have to first read that stanza. In it she says that she knows that a man appears vividly by her side, but she knows that he had sprang out of her head though he denies it, and he claims that he feels. His flesh was made out of the emotion of intense love, though she says at last that

“it’s quiet clear, All your beauty, all your wit, is a gift, my dear,From me.”

Thus saying that she is his/its creator (the usage of “it’s” shall be discussed later) and it is she who gives him all his wit, beauty etc. is a gift from her. The “him” (or the other individual) in this portion can connote to multiple people, and it each time offers a different reading with the change in the person. If the person is first considered a lover of Plath's then we say that she has come out of his head and all his beauty and wit he has given her, and his love is so fiery that he can prove that his flesh or existence is real (both to Plath and the reader). Another inference that can be added here is that this “lover” of hers does not have an autonomous existence and is merely just a product of her thought. But this here again becomes a problem as then a more sensible reading for the “person” could be her own poetry, as (I would say) all poetry is a product of an emotion that arises out of any event in a person’s life, which could be happy or painful, which is constructed and reconstructed over and over carefully till it attains a desired shape, structure and texture. Here it can be her love that stands ‘vividly’ next to her and it could be this very love which sprang out of her head, and has an emotion so real and fiery that it creates an autonomous existence for itself, the speaker though gives it autonomy, says in the end that all its beauty and wit it has gained from her. Another reading of that person or the entity in the poem could be Ted Hughes, this is a new-historicist reading of the poem where Plath’s own personal life is taken and read as a sub-text. She and Ted Hughes always had a strained marital relationship and it can be seen in another poem of hers other poems like daddy, where she accuses him of having an extra-marital relationship with someone else (though it appears only in a single instance).

Of Ted Hughes is brought into question we can come up with a new reading which is that, the last stanza can be read as a mockery towards him. As she says that he appears as vivid as her, and claims that he can act “real”, but he can never be real nor does he have the writers spark in him. This also brings up a possibility which is that Hughes might have stolen/borrowed ideas from her poetry and whatever beauty and wit that his works have are from her verses.

These to me are a few from the umpteen number of reading Plath’s poem the soliloquy of the solipsist can have, which seemed relevant to me. To understand Plath who is a modern poet (not only by concerns but also by style) the best method to do it would be to have a mixture of fine tuned close reading and elegant new-historicism, as Plath’s poetry reflect the complexity that is her. So for judicious understanding of her we need to know not only her poem but also her life and vice-versa. So these were the primary observations which I could derive from her poem the soliloquy of the solipsist and these observation can’t be called the last word or permanent, as these too with the passage of time and expansion of ideas shall be subject to change.