Worst Case of PMS Everrrr! February 11, 2007
Posted by amanda in : Uncategorized , trackbackSo, I just read the most unique two part article by Kate Moses called “The Real Sylvia Plath” it was written in 2000 and posted on salon.com. Moses argues (surprisingly convincingly) that Sylvia Plath committed suicide because she suffered from an extreme form of PMS.
*Now, before I continue, let me reassure you that I realize that why or how she committed suicide is neither here nor there because she did and nothing can change that, and I still believe that her poetry is the greatest regardless of her emotional state. This article does not challenge her poetic skill, but it does give a very interesting scientific (possible) explanation for her suicide…and i want to share it!
The theory was developed in 1990 that Plath suffered from PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder). Apparently, her archives contain both her calendars and journals in which she marked the dates of her cycles and the physical symptoms she was experiencing (respectively). The symptoms she had that correspond with this severe form of PMS include: “low impulse control, extreme anger, unexplained crying and hypersensitivity…extreme fatigue, insomnia, hypersomnia, extreme changes in apetite and itchiness…conjunctivitis, ringing in the ears, feelings of suffocation, headaches, and heart palpitations” it is also worthy of note that she got bad sinus infections once a month (2). At this point my heart goes out to Sylvia Plath more than ever. Moses writes “Close reading of the “Ariel” poems in terms of Plath’s menses noted the discernibly cyclic pattern of rise and fall in mood and tone in the poems as well as their many images and themes of barrenness, fertility, psychic pain, bleeding and relief, always controlled by the overseeing influence of the inspiring but uncaring and all-powerful moon goddess” (3). Pregnancies also exacerbated these symptoms, of which Plath had three (one resulting in a misscarriage). To me the most interesting phenomenon discussed in this article, is that despite her knowledge of her physical symptoms and her careful charting and the symbolism in her poetry…evidence suggests that it was all an unconscious coincidence and that because PMS was just being discovered around the time of her death and there are journal entries which suggest she still considered her physical state a mysery. To add extra insult to injury the doctor responsible for studying, discovering and treating PMDD was living in London in 1963 and she had made an appointment with him for only two weeks after she committed suicide!
I’m still not sure if I completely buy this argument or even really care, but it is interesting and the coincidences are hard to overlook.
Anyway it’s something to think about…
Comments»
What is interesting is the medicalization of genius -particularly for women poets as you have been tracing quite closely as of late. The diagnosis of PMDD as counter to dismissing here as insane, whatever that means, registers a plea in Plath’s defense. Do we remember Papa as insane after he takes his own life with a shotgun? -it has often been understood as his last great act of will - an entirely different reading that is most certainly gendered in relationship to the biographical assumptions surrounding Plath.
One thing that strikes me is that such an ever-evolving (not necessarily progressive) relationship between the biography and the poetry serves to open up an alternative hermeneutic approach. In fact, you describe an acronym that seems much more in tune with the 1990s diagnoses of conditions like ADD & ADHD than the more romanticized vision of the artist, which often traces the wonderfully awful intersection of genius, creativity, and madness. And while this Modernist vision of the writer has all too often been over-used and abused, does such a clinical reading proffered by Moses err too much in the other direction?
I’m not sure, for more recent poetry, like Sharon Olds’s The Father for example, often concentrates on corporeal conceits that struggle with (amongst many other things) the physical limits of the human body. But might we be grafting Plath’s condition onto another moment (gestalt?) of poetry for interpretation? Perhaps, but I would have to define a moment outside of the literary bounds of modernism/post-modernism that I am jailing myself in -but I can’t at this moment! so I’ll stop there. Phew!!!
Great stuff to try and wrap one’s head around, I haven’t worked so hard without reading poetry in many years!
Woah! thanks for this comment! I agree with you that while it is in some cases refreshing to get a closed-case scientific diagnosis it is likewise somewhat hasty and quite possibly innacurate. I liked that you described the diagnosis as similar to the ADD/ADHD “epedemic” of the mid-1990’s. While this argument is candid and straightfoward it doesn’t eliminate all of the questions and it is important to keep the questions circulating otherwise you could fool yourself into thinking that all Plath needed was a “Midol” and she would have been just fine.
I also agree with the implication that perscribing and diagnosing “famous” people post-mortem is a very gender specific problem. I mean talk about current events, all you have to do now is look at the dialogues and controversy surrounding the death of Anna Nicole Smith! When male celebrities (and i realize i’m being reductive here) die, we determine the cause, link it to a history of alcoholism or depression and are done with it, but when women celebrities die it is somehow “mysterious” and we dissect their careers and personal lives photo by photo and interview by interview and come up with competing “theories”.
I think the appeal to this article can be found in its irony: sure it is diagnosing Plath with a disease that can only affect women but at the same time then it is trying to put an end to the conroversy as we would treat a male suicide. it is finally something written about Sylvia Plath that makes clear-cut assertions and is delightfully succinct!
I wouldn’t take this article as absolute truth because then it would question the need to study Plath any further (as the article claims to have solved all the problems) but it is nice to consider a scientific gender-neutral approach to Sylvia Plath