Reconhecida principalmente pela sua obra poética, Sylvia Plath escreveu também um
romance semi-
autobiográfico,
A Campânula de Vidro ("The Bell Jar"), sob o
pseudónimo de Victoria Lucas, com detalhes do histórico da sua luta contra a
depressão. Assim como
Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath é creditada por dar continuidade ao género de
poesia confessional, iniciado por Robert Lowell e W. D. Snodgrass.
(...)
Na manhã de 11 de fevereiro de 1963,
Plath veda completamente o quarto das crianças com toalhas molhadas e
roupas, deixando leite e pão perto de suas camas, tendo o cuidado de
abrir as janelas do quarto, ainda que a meio de um forte nevão. De
seguida, toma uma grande quantidade de narcóticos, deitando logo após a
cabeça sobre uma toalha no interior do forno, com o gás ligado, morrendo
passado pouco tempo.
Na manhã seguinte, foi encontrada pela enfermeira que havia
contratado, Myra Norris, que, quando chegou ao apartamento, sentiu um
cheiro muito forte de gás. Pediu ajuda. A porta foi arrombada. O quarto
das crianças estava gelado, e ambas com muito frio.
Em 16 de março de 2009, o seu filho Nicholas Hughes (biólogo marinho e professor universitário em Fairbanks, Alasca), em consequência de uma depressão, também cometeu suicídio, enforcando-se em sua casa. Não era casado e não tinha filhos.
Daddy
You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time——
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal
And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.
In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend
Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.
It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene
An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.
The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.
I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You——
Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who
Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I’m finally through.
The black telephone’s off at the root,
The voices just can’t worm through.
If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two——
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.
There’s a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.
Sylvia Plath
