Afterword

2020 ◽  
pp. 207-220
Author(s):  
William Wootten
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Politics ◽  
Sylvia Plath ◽  
Personal Relationship

The Afterword examines publications and disclosures made about the connection between A. Alvarez and Sylvia Plath since the first publication of The Alvarez Generation. Its own look at the biographical details of personal relationship between the two writers details the timing of their meetings and the poems Plath recited at them. The Afterword also weighs up the biographical evidence for a possible sexual liaison between Alvarez and Plath, including the testimony of Olwyn Hughes regarding Plath’s journals cited by Ted Hughes’s biographer Jonathan Bate, and settles the question by adding new biographical evidence of its own. The Afterword then reconsiders ‘Beyond the Gentility Principle’ in relation to questions of sex and sexual politics, and re-evaluates Alvarez’s presentations of possible connections between Plath’s poetry and her suicide.

Mother or Wife?

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 232-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phia S. Salter ◽  
Glenn Adams
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Resource Allocation ◽  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Personal Relationship ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Church Membership ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Psychology Perspective ◽  
Cultural Ecological

Inspired by “Mother or Wife” African dilemma tales, the present research utilizes a cultural psychology perspective to explore the dynamic, mutual constitution of personal relationship tendencies and cultural-ecological affordances for neoliberal subjectivity and abstracted independence. We administered a resource allocation task in Ghana and the United States to assess the prioritization of conjugal/nuclear relationships over consanguine/kin relationships along three dimensions of sociocultural variation: nation (American and Ghanaian), residence (urban and rural), and church membership (Pentecostal Charismatic and Traditional Western Mission). Results show that tendencies to prioritize nuclear over kin relationships – especially spouses over parents – were greater among participants in the first compared to the second of each pair. Discussion considers issues for a cultural psychology of cultural dynamics.

Sylvia Plath

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Wagner-Martin
Keyword(s):  
Sylvia Plath

Drowning in negativism, self-hate, doubt, madness: Linguistic insights into Sylvia Plath’s experience of depression

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zsófia Demjén
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Medical Humanities ◽  
Sylvia Plath ◽  
Individual Experience ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Linguistic Methods ◽  
Linguistic Approach

This paper demonstrates how a range of linguistic methods can be harnessed in pursuit of a deeper understanding of the ‘lived experience’ of psychological disorders. It argues that such methods should be applied more in medical contexts, especially in medical humanities. Key extracts from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath are examined, as a case study of the experience of depression. Combinations of qualitative and quantitative linguistic methods, and inter- and intra-textual comparisons are used to consider distinctive patterns in the use of metaphor, personal pronouns and (the semantics of) verbs, as well as other relevant aspects of language. Qualitative techniques provide in-depth insights, while quantitative corpus methods make the analyses more robust and ensure the breadth necessary to gain insights into the individual experience. Depression emerges as a highly complex and sometimes potentially contradictory experience for Plath, involving both a sense of apathy and inner turmoil. It involves a sense of a split self, trapped in a state that one cannot overcome, and intense self-focus, a turning in on oneself and a view of the world that is both more negative and more polarized than the norm. It is argued that a linguistic approach is useful beyond this specific case.

The Ideological Apprenticeship of Sylvia Plath

2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 59-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Peel
Keyword(s):  
Sylvia Plath
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