Just a grammatical correction.Sonia
Subject: Re: Men with sisters: a sociological approach?


> Men who had sisters belong (sometimes) all together to a different
> category THAN those who never had any contact, during their childhood and
> adolescence years ,
> with the female of the species. They tend to analyze female behavior as
> hysterical.
> Only men who had sisters have learned how easily a sister can
> break a wooden chair on her brothers' head and send him to hospital.
> The poetry of it!

>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 10:42 PM
> Subject: Re: Plath: a sociological approach?
>
>
> > As good a place to jump in as any.
> >
> > There are perfectly sane and defensible reasons for committing suicide.
In
> > Japan traditionally loss of face or disgrace were considered ok reasons,
> > and suicide in the face of hopeless illness or, as in Benjamin's case, a
> > hopeless situation that could only get much worse, is hard to criticize.
> > Schizophrenics sometimes commit suicide because their voices tell them
> > to--it doesn't happen as often as one might think, and it's not a good
> > thing, but again it's hard to put a moral judgement on it. But the vast
> > majority of suicides are histrionic passive aggressive acts on the part
of
> > very narcissistic people. The problem for the suicide, of course, is
that
> > he or she has forgotten that she or he won't be there to enjoy the
> > results--the act does require at least a degree of delusion, or let's
say
> > extremely restricted focus. I suspect that Plath fell into this last
> category.
> >
> > Suicide is the ultimate act of revenge--the survivor never recovers, is
> > left with unresolvable anger--hard to answer back short of one's own
> > suicide. And it's no coincidence that the survivors are far more likely
to
> > commit suicide themselves than the population at large. So the suicide
has
> > assumed an unusual power over the intended victim. Among the problems
with
> > this form of revenge is that the damage is spread much wider: let's say
> > that Plath's target was Hughes. Those who suffered most and are
> > statistically at far greater risk are her children.
> >
> > When I've been at least in fantasy on the brink (rather different than
> when
> > I really was during the long psychosis we call adolescence) what's
pulled
> > me back from even considering the idea seriously is what it would do to
> > Carlos. That's because I'm not all that narcissistic--other people
really
> > do exist.
> >
> > Therapists rate the seriousness of suicide risk among other things on
the
> > basis of the method the patient proposes. The more violent, hence
> > irrevocable, the means the more serious and imminent the threat. So
> gunshot
> > is near the top, then hanging (one could be found) then wrist-slitting
> (one
> > could be found and one could also call emergency) and pills and gas near
> > the bottom--for the reasons given for wrist-slitting, but also because,
> for
> > pills, it takes a long time, dosage is uncertain, and one could vomit
them
> > up, for gas because few houses are that well-sealed and if one happens
to
> > fall away from the stove after passing out it really takes a long time,
> > hence more opportunity for discovery. The histrionic suicide
attempt--the
> > suicide found in time--is passive-aggressive behavior in its purest
form.
> >
> > It happens that women commit suicide by means of drugs or gas more often
> > than men, perhaps because men are more likely to have weapons, because
> > women who don't work outside the home spend more time alone inside the
> > home, or because men are more likely to express themselves violently
> > against self or others. There have been feminist explanations, but it's
> > good to remember that the mortality from avoidable causes is
considerably
> > higher among young men than among young women. Women may commit
histrionic
> > suicide attempts more often, men tend to be more successful at dying.
> >
> > The practical application of the differential suicide screen is that if
I
> > find out that a patient is thinking about shooting himself and he (It's
> > almost always a he) has a gun I'm likely to have him committed for
suicide
> > watch. If a patient tells me she's thinking of doing away with herself
by
> > pills I can often get her through it by provoking her anger or by
> > contracting with me not to kill herself before speaking to me--me, not
my
> > phone machine--before she does anything. Believe it or not, that last
> > tactic is close to infallible. If the patient won't contract it's
straight
> > to the hospital.
> >
> > It seems to be almost universally assumed in Plath's case that Hughes
> drove
> > her to it. I'm suggesting that Plath responded in only one of the
possible
> > ways. And I would doubt that her passive-aggressiveness was limited to
her
> > suicide. It's I think folly to speculate about what happens in the
> intimacy
> > of other people's marriages, but it's usually a safe bet that each
partner
> > gives as good as he or she gets, altho perhaps in different currency.
> > Hughes and Plath had a marriage that became lousy and they each acted
out.
> > Plath's acting out was suicide.
> >
> > As to her hard row as a woman writer, there were many enormously
powerful
> > woman writers at the time. I'm thinking about Lillian Hellman, Elizabeth
> > Hardwick, Mary McCarthy, Doris Lessing, Hannah Arendt--it's a long list.
> > Whatever impediments were placed in the paths of women some women
> > notoriously got past them. I've never understood why this was truer of
> > prose--as it had been from before the beginning of the nineteenth
> > century--than of verse. One would think that the boys would have tried
> > harder to control the money-earning areas of literature and would have
> > relegated the women to the genteel poverty of poets. It may be that more
> > talented, forceful women chose, in whatever sense one chooses, to write
> > prose. That doesn't answer the why.
> >
> >
> > At 12:16 PM 7/7/2000 -0700, you wrote:
> > >Just a thought re Plath - can the hysteria in her
> > >poetry, the sense of isolation, of terrible
> > >alienation, the solipsism - be explained by reference
> > >to the social conditions that obtained in her lifetime
> > >in England and the US? She was really too early to
> > >ride the wave of militant collectivist feminism, yet
> > >in her life she seemed to encounter many of the
> > >problems that drove that movement(maybe Ted Hughes
> > >exemplified the reasons why the world needed, and
> > >still needs, a feminist movement!). Perhaps her
> > >terrible 'existential' isolation can be traced to the
> > >huge and isolating obstacles placed in her way by a
> > >sexist society?  I am struck by the similarity between
> > >Plath'
> > >s nihilism and hysteria and the 'theoretical' work of
> > >the 'Radical (separatist) Feminists' - most famously,
> > >of Andrea 'all men are rapists and should be
> > >eliminated' Dworkin - who emerged in the 80s, another
> > >time of conservatism and attacks on womens rights in
> > >the USA and the UK. Have any critics talked up this
> > >parrallel (must admit I'm not much up on the Plath
> > >lit crit )?
> > >
> > >Cheers
> > >Scott Hamilton
> > >
> > >=====
> > >"Why is it not possible for me to doubt that I have never been on the
> > moon?  And how
> > >could I try to doubt it?  First and foremost, the supposition that
> perhaps
> > I have
> > >been there would strike me as idle.  Nothing would follow from it,
> nothing
> > be
> > >explained by it.  It would not tie in with anything in my life...
> > Philosophical
> > >problems occur when language goes on holiday.  We must not separate
ideas
> > from life,
> > >we must not be misled by the appearances of sentences: we must
> investigate
> > the
> > >application of words in individual language-games"      - Ludwig
> Wittgenstein
> > >
> > >__________________________________________________
> > >Do You Yahoo!?
> > >Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger.
> > >http://im.yahoo.com/
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%