by Sylvia Plath
Oh, mother, I hate to bother you with this, but I could cry. Life is so black anyway with my two best friends, Dick and Marcia, so far removed I hardly see them – and this course: I actually am worried over my mental state! What earthly good is this going to do me in my future life? I hate it, find it hideous, loathsome. I have built it up to a devouring malicious monster. Anything but formulas, anything but. And it is only a grade I course! God, what a mess my life is. And I know I am driving myself to distraction: everything is empty, meaningless. This is not education. It is hell; and how could I ever persuade the college authorities to let me drop a year course at the half year? How could I convince the psychiatrist I would go mad if I didn’t escape from these horrible formulas &, for me, dry, useless chunks of memory? My reason is leaving me. I want to get out of this. Everybody is happy, but this has obsessed me from the day I got here. I really am in a state of complete and horrible panic. I feel on the one hand that I must get out of this course; I can’t reconcile the memory & rote with my philosophy of a creative education, and I am in a very embarassing position as far as the authorities of the college are concerned: I have managed to make a pretty good impression so far, but to have me go insane over what I thought was a horrible, wasteful course, would only make them expel me, or something. Every week I dread opening my science book; it is the subject of the course that annihilates my will and love of life. NOT the fact that if I studied more I could take it calmly. Of course I am behind a few chapters (I skipped them to keep abreast of the present work . . . ) but I feel that if I only could drop it second semester (how I would fill the science requirement I don’t know!) I could at least see the light of life again. Even now I have a unit paper due – a new week’s work of science to vomit over. I am childish? Maybe, but the series of hideous adjustments thrown in my lap this year doesn’t help. Science is, to me, useless drudgery for no purpose. A vague, superficial understanding of molecules & atoms isn’t going to advance my understanding of life. I can’t deny that to myself.
Oh! Every fiber of me rebels against the unnecessary torture I am going through. If only I wanted to understand it, but I don’t! I am revolted by it, obsessed. How can I ever explain this to anyone plausibly – even the psychiatrist? I am driven inward, feeling hollow. No rest cure in the infirmary will cure the sickness in me.
I will wait till Thanksgiving before getting actively desperate. But oh, how very desolate & futile & trapped I feel!
Love, your hollow girl . . .
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Tuesday 2 December 1952*
ALS (postcard),* Indiana University
Tuesday 11 a.m.
Dear mum . . .
I am writing from the warm armchair in the Browsing room of the library where I shall be living for the next few weeks. Just finished the Divine Comedy.* Whew! I almost wish I’d had a Catholic background, as you have, so I could understand the heavenly logical faith of it. Unlike God, I can’t be happy with souls suffering in hell! Anyway, I had a nice ride back on the Bus with Charlotte Kennedy, and we discussed plans for house dance. I wrote Myron* this morning. You have no idea how the thought of his coming inspires me to work hard now! Even if he doesn’t ever speak to me again (and how I hope he does!) There is a good psychological incentive in having such handsome bait dangled before one as reward if one is good & gets work done. Now that I look back, I am most happy about our lovely peaceful Thanksgiving. Thanks for typing my MS and for letting me loaf so scandalously. I absorbed strength to live through the next 3 weeks – with 2 long papers due and that fateful written a week from Thursday.
Love from a grateful
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Thursday 4 December 1952*
TLS with envelope,
Indiana University
Darling mother . . .
Notes in the next few weeks will be brief and hectic, but I just had to write you today to tell you about the lovely avalanche of mail I had. A lovely letter from Alison, and I do hope I can stop in New York on the way back from Dick and see her for a few days. It would be saving as far as train fare is concerned, and it would be such fun. Got a long letter from Dick* with a story and poem enclosed. The one thing I miss about his work is feeling. I think he sent me his most carefully composed work which does not mean that he felt it strongly. I am sure that his creative writing notebook is more spontaneous, but bless the lad for trying. Hope the boys magazines are encouraging.
Got a delicious letter from Myron. It is the Detroit Tigers he pitches for, and he will be in Alabama this summer. Gosh, I can’t wait to see him. I am so excited. This is the first date I have been so thrilled about. Of course there is the grubby hour by hour schedule planned for the next three weeks, but three papers and that horrible written. But hell, I can’t cry in my beer all the time. Myron sounds just unbelievable. I’m so glad I have a lot of success and luck in my field to balance his. Both of us are evidently quite ambitious, and his versatility of appreciation of life, and finding beauty in ugliness, is quite close to mine. I hope, fingers crossed, that he likes me, because I am already fond of what he symbolizes. Ah, me.
The best letter, in a way, was a rejection slip. But this one bore the blissful touch of an editors hand, in penmanship and real ink too, and it said “PLEASE TRY US AGAIN.” And guess where it was from . . . . . The New Yorker! I had only sent them one poem before, and gotten an impersonal slip, so I know they don’t write encouraging notes all the time. Needless to say, I am thrilled to bits, and will work on poetry this spring, I think, as I have neither the time nor the fortitude to sit and meditate over sonnets for the next half year. Perhaps by the time you are 1oo years old you can say, “Yes, my baby got a poem in the New Yorker.” Well, nothing like being ambitious, but I was amazed and pleased. I figure they don’t ask just everybody to try them again unless they sense promise.
Love, your stupid chemical and physical daughter. I know just how you feel about French. I had begun to think I was the only idiot in the family. A hard course sure hurts ones ego. Love and kisses,
Sivvy
TO Warren Plath
Thursday 4 December 1952*
TLS (photocopy) written on
Smith College letterhead,
Indiana University
Thursday night
just before house meeting
Dear Warren . . .
So glad I have a few minutes to write my favorite man. There is so much to tell you. Life is certainly looking up for your old sister, even if she is practically in danger of flunking an amateur science course because she can’t seem to understand beautiful euphonic words like erg, joules, valences, watts, coulombs and amperes. Anyhow, let me start from where I left you. First of all: I just love Cynthia! We had the best time riding home together, and I find her a most stimulating girl, and we have a lot in common, since we’ve taken a lot of the same courses in high school, except that I gather she is much better in science than I am. Which will be nice for you. Really, Warren, I think she is simply a prize, so cute and lively and fun. I hope I can read her D. H. Lawrence paper this Christmas vacation.
Dick is coming home for a few days for Christmas, at the time of the Cotillion, darn it, so I will have to give up the idea of going and stay home, the way he did for me last year when I was sick. But really, dances aren’t as important as people, and I’ll be glad to see him. I am leaving with him by train or plane for the sanatorium right after Christmas for a few days. I will be living with the family of a doctor who writes novels and short stories in his spare time, and meeting all sorts of tubercular New York truck drivers, so it should be lots of fun. On the way back home I may even stop on Park Avenue to visit Alison Smith for a few days. Wot a giddy life!!
The best thing happened the day after you left Thanksgiving. Did mother tell you? I went to Perry’s for supper and he had two roommates home from Yale. One is engaged to be married this Christmas, and Perry said over the Phone that the ot
her one, Myron Lotz, was first in his class at Yale (Perry is second.) I envisioned a short dark little boy with glasses. What was my amazed surprise when I walked into the Norton’s living room and saw a tall, handsome guy get up and grin. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been so immediately attracted to anyone. He looks anything but the brilliant scholar. Guess what he does in the summer! He pitches for the Detroit Tigers, and last summer he earned $10,000! Isn’t that amazing. Not only that, he comes from Austro-Hungarian immigrant parents* who work in the steel mines and can hardly speak English. And he is going through Yale in three years, starting Yale med school next fall. Did you ever hear of such a phenomenal character? Best of all, he is coming up to our Lawrence House Dance with me the weekend of December 13, so we’ll really have a chance to get to know each other. Keep your fingers crossed that my beautiful intellectual charm will captivate the brilliant lug. Maybe you could help me with information about the Detroit Tigers. I don’t even know what league they’re in! Ah, me.
Another thing: I just got the most exciting rejection slip today! In case you aren’t aware, a personal editorial comment on the printed slip is more than encouraging. Well, guess what. Written in real ink in real penmanship at the bottom of the rejection of my poem were the magical words “PLEASE TRY US AGAIN”. The magazine was none other than that august journal, the New Yorker! Isn’t that tremendous! They are actually asking me to try again, and they wouldn’t just do that if they didn’t mean it. So for the next fifty years your sister will be trying again. Maybe you can say casually someday, “Yes, My Sister has Appeared in the New Yorker.”
I was so happy today in my unit: we had a gruelling oral Chaucer test on grammar, pronunciation, and memorization, which involved going alone into the den with the great, tall, blindingly brilliant and witty Patch and reciting. I love that man with fear and trembling. He is the most imposing mind I have ever had the opportunity to work with, and the fear and pressure and hard work suddenly seemed more than worth it. He said my pronunciation of Middle English was excellent, and complimented me on my story* which he read in the Smith Review. I was walking on clouds, really. My ego has been so deflated by my science course that this lifted me like a helium balloon.
Well, I must needs go to bed now. Remember that I love you, baby, as Mickey Spillane* would say. And I do hope you let me know what you are doing and thinking about. After all, there is no one in the world but us who has shared our particular common past and childhood . . . . everything from the feast and the beast and the jelly bean to skalshalala meat, remember? And it is not every sister who has such a tall handsome brilliant brother to be proud of. Wonder what you’d think of Myron. Of course he has had women going gaga over him at baseball games, and talking about their hopechests, but I don’t have to worry about scaring him away, because I’m the last one to get matrimonial avarice in my eye. Poof, for a few years yet, anyway. There is so much to do in life anyway. Anyway.
Write if you get work.
lots of xxxxxx
sivvy
P.S. Say a merry hello to Pooch and thanks for the float. He is a good guy, as we say in the underworld.
xx again
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Tuesday 9 December 1952*
ALS (postcard), Indiana University
Tuesday am
Dearest mum . . .
Well, the grind has started, and I write you from the beginning of the fatal week. I must tell you, tho’, what a boost your letter gave me. It was like having you here to talk to me & give good advice, which I often need! I shall follow your wise precepts, o, mother! Thursday at 9 am is the fatal hour. On that depends my future! One lovely thing – I got a wonderful letter from O. H. Prouty* and am going to “tea” with her at 5 o’clock Sat. the 20th. Write it down on my calendar, will you! Can I have the car? I’m so excited. Also, Dick wrote to say he has plane (!) tickets for us to go up to Saranac – and that the doctor’s wife has skiis I can use just my size. What luck! Yesterday was a red letter day – got 6 letters: you, Dick, Perry,* Prouty, a letter from Yale asking if I wanted to write for a new intercollegiate mag, and a card from Miss Drew asking me to tea (sadly I can’t go!) Not bad, wot!
Off to the wars
xxx
sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Saturday 13 December 1952
ALS with envelope,
Indiana University
December 13 . . .
Saturday a.m.
Dear Mother . . .
Just wanted to say a fond hello in between dashing hither and yon. My hellish day (Thursday) being over, it seems I can again begin to live. You should have seen the day I put in: up at 7 to clean the room, breakfast, 9-10, science exam (don’t think I failed, but just pray I got a B of sorts) 10-11, watch at house, 11-12:30 – Press Board; 12:30-2, lunch waitress; 2-3, creative writing; 3-4 appointment with honors advisor; 4-6 Chaucer unit. And all this in the drenching, pouring rain. All I did was run around, and Thursday night I washed my hair, did my nails, and collapsed in bed. I don’t see how I get all the things done that I do! Not only have I had my hair trimmed (just trimmed – they do it so well up here, it doesn’t look shorter, just neater.) but I went* shopping, too, and tried on about a hundred wool dresses from $12.95 to $45, none of which I liked. So I bought, instead, the most gorgeous cashmere pullover you ever saw. It is long-sleeved, a divine, luscious shade of red, and the most sensuously soft lovely texture – for $18.95. I bought shields, too, and sewed them right in (so domestic!) I am wearing it with my pleated white wool skirt to the cocktail party this afternoon (very Christmassy color combo, wot?) and it goes beautifully with my black velvet skirt, my charcoal gray wool, my plaid skirt, and blue suit, too. So you see, I have several variable “outfits” all for the price. I am so happy with the sweater: I would rather have one beautiful thing and all the rest old & wornout, than to have a lot of mediocre things.
In Chaucer unit we had a written & oral test, and I was one of the two people (out of seven) that passed.
Myron, Perry, and Charlotte and I went to Christmas Vespers last (Friday night) – very pretty with all the singing and candlelight ceremony. Afterwards we went down to Joe’s – a noisy pizza and beer (we had tomato juice) place with red-checked tablecloths and lots of atmosphere. Myron & I ate a small bacon, tomato & cheese pizza between us and talked about baseball, Spenser’s philosophy of despair, and quoted poetry on the way back to the dorm (Charlotte & Perry started back earlier) we played that he was a gangster & I was a gun moll, and that the buildings were stage scenery. Really, he wore a hat! His mother didn’t want his head to get cold. – a real businessman’s hat like that!
Cross your fingers that today goes all right. I probably will never see him again after this, but he is such a fascinating individual – had to show me his Jr. Phi Bete key – such a mixture of vanity (how much is a cover up I don’t know) and real sweetness. He had memorized the letter I wrote to him!
Ah, me!
Much love,
Sivvy
P.S. My photos came out bee-you-ti-ful!
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Monday 15 December 1952*
ALS with envelope written on
Smith College letterhead,
Indiana University
Monday a.m.
Dear Mother:
How can I recapture the last 3 days I don’t know! I only can say that they have been the most blissful theraputic respite from the academic grind that I have had this year! Nothing I imagined could equal the magnificent time I had.
Myron and Perry arrived, as I said, at 7 Friday, and we spent the evening as a foursome. Saturday, Myron called for me at 11 a.m. and said that he had the car till three. (This was a lovely thoughtful present on the part of the boy who owned it – I star
ted my period for the first time in 3 months, and so didn’t feel like biking as we had planned.) We drove and drove out into the country, and as we went north, the sunny bare landscape changed to fir trees and snow. We stopped the car on a country road overlooking the hills, and Myron showed me all the pictures he had brought, and clippings – he had some lovely action shots of him pitching, and bequeathed me a dramatic snapshot of him taken in the baseball stadium – in his uniform, profile very nice.* I was so pleased that he shared his baseball triumphs with me, I felt so proud of him. We sat and talked, and it began to snow, so we drove back along the precarious roads. He was so understanding: said that he was glad we could go off together, because in a group larger than two you had to spread conversation so thin that you never got to know more than your dates name. (My sentiments exactly.) On the way back we stopped at a diner and had ham and eggs for a late lunch. We changed, then, for the cocktail party, and walked over to the professors house. On the way, we decided to keep on walking for a while longer, and so walked up to the mental hospital, among the buildings, listening to the people screaming. It was a most terrifying holy experience, with the sun setting red and cold over the black hills, and the inhuman echoing howls coming from the barred windows. (I want so badly to learn about why and how people cross the borderline between sanity & insanity!) We went to the party then, and had a daiquiri apiece, which made both of us very sleepy, and me a little high for an hour. Supper at Lawrence, and then piano music by a negro friend of a girl in the house, then dancing (I wore heels, and he was just a lovely height) and a walk around campus. We were both very sleepy.