Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath are two well-known women writers of the twentieth century who committed suicide. The narratives created by their deaths have in some instances become as important as the canonical work they produced. In an effort to understand their motivations and struggles, critics and the public alike have sometimes reduced these women to victims of the patriarchy, mental illness, or even themselves. Beginning with my own discovery of this issue in the legacies of Plath and Woolf combined with my personal dealings with suicide in my family, I recount how I lost these two women as exemplary figures because of their choice to commit suicide. I then take a look at what others have said about their deaths and how it has affected their legacies as writers. Finally, I take a look at Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Plath’s The Bell Jar for an alternate perspective on suicide. Through this journey, I recount how I have been able to regain my respect for these two talented women by considering multiple viewpoints and acknowledging the nuance inherent in any account.

This essay analyzes Esther Greenwood’s identity crisis, mental illness, and recovery in Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar (1963) from a feminist psychoanalytic perspective. The purpose is to understand the cultural and psychological mechanisms behind the main character’s situation. Esther is a talented and hardworking student who dreams of a literary career in 1950’s America. At the age of nineteen, events and realizations launch Esther into an identity crisis that leads to severe depression. Why she falls ill, and the nature of her illness and recovery, are up for interpretation. The thesis of this essay is that Esther Greenwood’s identity crisis, mental illness, and recovery can be explained using a feminist interpretation of Freud’s theories of hysteria and melancholia, and the development of the differences between the sexes, which includes the Freudian concepts of castration, bisexuality, and the Oedipus complex.

Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar portrays the complexities of female identity and the pernicious outcomes of societal pressure on mental health. At its core, the novel presents an exploration of female anxiety and the ways in which societal expectations and gender norms contribute to the erosion of one's mental well-being. Through the lens of feminist psychoanalysis, this thesis will claim that the novel's recurring motifs of confinement and anxiety – including its central image of the bell jar – function not only as an expression of Esther's mental illness, but also as a social commentary. More specifically, it will argue that these motifs make visible how Esther's anxiety and depression are the result of the interplay between external pressure and internal struggles. Since the novel is often regarded as a roman à clef, this essay will furthermore argue that these motifs are the result of Sylvia Plath's unconscious.

Spanning forty years apart, the short story “Miss Sophia’s Diary” (1926) by Ding Ling and The Bell Jar (1963) by Sylvia Plath can speak to one another in revealing the position of women in a revolutionary new era. The two stories may be generationally and geographically distant, yet both hold a collective female consciousness in the context of the emerging modernist epoch. By examining these two pieces of literature in relation to one another, similar attitudes and stylistic trends emerge regarding the treatment of women. The common archetypes, for each respective time and country, imprinted onto women are at some points accepted but also rejected in these two female-focused stories. In disregarding many of the traits associated with the modern woman, Ling and Plath mold a unique feminine persona to capture the essence of what a true woman can and should be. Not only does the likeness of the works contribute in establishing a global feminist ideal, it is in the differences where cultural and generational attitudes can be investigated. What the pillar of feminism represented in early 1920s China differs significantly from 1950s United States of America. Though these differences can be signs of progression for woman’s rights, there are many of the same anxieties surrounding women that have lingered on for decades. This thesis will conduct a comparative study on how the “Miss Sophia’s Diary” and The Bell Jar posses the unique variations of the modern woman. Furthermore, with the use of a web-based corpus analysis program, this thesis sets out to probe selections from both works linguistically. Doing so will uphold a clearer image as to each texts’ word associations when discussing women and can further reveal how the construction of each female persona compares to one another. Overall, this thesis dismantles borders of both time and space to expose the true meaning behind the modern woman’s role in a largely demeaning and patriarchal world.

Titre de l'écran-titre (visionné le 14 août 2023) / Ce mémoire en recherche-création conceptualise les espaces liminaux pour matérialiser la dépression à l'écran dans un effort d'adapter au cinéma The Bell Jar (1963) de Sylvia Plath, un roman semi-autobiographique dans lequel Plath fait la chronique de sa dépression pendant ses premières années à l'université. Le mémoire consiste en un essai qui explore comment les espaces liminaux peuvent être conceptualisés à l'écran pour matérialiser ce qu'on ressent physiquement et émotionnellement lorsqu'on est en dépression, ainsi qu'un « volet création » composé de cinq séquences et d'une scène d'un scénario adapté du roman The Bell Jar. La partie recherche est divisée en deux chapitres. Le premier présente la liminalité et les espaces liminaux tels qu'ils sont théorisés dans les Rites de passage (1909) d'Arnold van Gennep et offre un aperçu de la dépression dans The Bell Jar. Le deuxième chapitre présente trois approches originales pour conceptualiser les espaces liminaux afin qu'ils rendent la dépression plus accessible dans un format cinématographique. Nous expliquons ici la théorie qui sous-tend la matérialisation de la dépression à l'écran et décrivons comment elle se traduit à l'écran à l'aide d'extraits du roman. Le « volet création » du mémoire consiste en une partie d'un scénario : cinq séquences de scènes et une scène seule (scène 5) illustrant comment chaque théorie facilite la matérialisation de la dépression à l'écran. Ce « volet création » est imbriqué dans la partie recherche afin de mieux illustrer comment la théorie, le scénario et la cinématographie de la scène s'emboîtent. Le scénario illustre comment la conception théorique des espaces liminaux se traduirait dans un format filmique. Les deux scènes scénarisées pour chaque approche théorique sont ensuite analysées en fonction de la théorie présentée. Chaque section se focalise sur une approche théorique et explique comment elle informe l'esthétique de l'espace liminal dans les scènes ou séquences. Étant donné que l'objectif du mémoire est de conceptualiser les espaces liminaux, le scénario sera plus descriptif de ses éléments visuels à l'écran que riche de ses dialogues. Le mémoire cherche à présenter une approche plus nuancée de la représentation de la dépression à l'écran que ce que nous avons l'habitude de voir au cinéma. La dépression au cinéma est souvent explorée à des fins de narration, ou secondaire à l'enjeu principal (Side Effects, The Virgin Suicides, Little Miss Sunshine), ou fait partie d'une critique plus large sur des enjeux de société (Prozac Nation, Girl Interrupted). Certains de ces films traitant de la dépression présentent une esthétique et des techniques cinématographiques qui indiquent une volonté d'extérioriser les émotions complexes du personnage à l'écran sans avoir recours à des dispositifs linguistiques tels que la narration en voix off. Un objectif fisheye, « objectif photographique ayant une distance focale très courte et donc un angle de champ très grand » (Ang, Toute la photo, 150), est parfois utilisé pour matérialiser la tristesse, l'engourdissement, ou pour désorienter le spectateur. Ce mémoire s'éloigne de ces représentations de la dépression au cinéma et explore comment les espaces liminaux au cinéma peuvent matérialiser les émotions complexes et parfois incongrues qu'Esther éprouve dans The Bell Jar. Les scènes scénarisées dans la partie création brossent le portrait d'une maladie qui influence le processus cognitif et le rapport qu'à le personnage avec son environnement. Nous avons développé trois approches différentes pour conceptualiser les espaces liminaux à l'écran, chacune visant à élucider différentes facettes de la dépression d'Esther. Les deux premières explorent la désorientation, un symptôme moins préjudiciable, tandis que la troisième approche tente de matérialiser les idées suicidaires du personnage. Ce mémoire met en évidence la capacité du cinéma à transmettre des nuances sensorielles et émotionnelles, et s'ancre dans une conviction défendue par les études cinématographiques selon laquelle la représentation mène à la démocratisation, ce qui, dans le cadre de ce travail, équivaut à une meilleure compréhension de la dépression. / This mémoire en recherche-création conceptualizes liminal spaces to materialize depression on-screen through an adaptation of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar (1963), a semi-autobiographical novel in which Plath chronicles her depression during her early college years. The thesis consists of an essay that explores how liminal spaces can be conceptualized on-screen to materialize depression on a physical and an emotional level, as well as a « volet création » consisting of five sequences and one scene of a screenplay adapted from the novel The Bell Jar. The essay is divided into two chapters. The first introduces liminality and liminal spaces as they are theorized in Arnold van Gennep's Rites of passage (1909) and provides an overview of depression in The Bell Jar. The second chapter presents three original approaches to conceptualizing liminal spaces so that they render depression more accessible through a cinematic format. In this chapter, I explain the theoretical basis behind materializing depression on-screen and then, I describe how it translates on-screen using excerpts from the novel. The creative section of the thesis consists of a partial screenplay: five sequences and one single scene (scene 5) illustrating how each theory can help materialize depression on-screen. This « volet création » is interwoven with the research section to better illustrate how the theory, screenplay, and cinematography of the scene fit together. The screenplay illustrates how the theoretical conception of liminal spaces would translate to a filmic format. The two scenes scripted for each theoretical approach are then analyzed in terms of the theory presented. Each section focuses on a theoretical approach and explains how it informs the aesthetics of the liminal space in the scenes or sequences. Given the thesis's objective in conceptualizing liminal spaces, the screenplay will be more descriptive of its on-screen visual elements than rich in dialogue. The thesis seeks to present a more nuanced approach to the representation of depression on-screen than what we are used to seeing in cinema. Depression in film is often explored for narrative purposes, or secondary to the main thematic (Side Effects, The Virgin Suicides, Little Miss Sunshine), or as part of a broader critique of social or political issues (Prozac Nation, Girl Interrupted). Some of these films that engage with depression display an aesthetic and cinematographic techniques that indicate a desire to exteriorize the character's complex feelings on-screen without resorting to linguistic devices such as voice-over narration. A fisheye lens, « an ultra-wide-angle lens that produces strong visual distortion intended to create a wide panoramic or hemispherical image » (Ang, Fundamentals of Modern Photography, 146), is sometimes used to materialize sadness, numbness, or to disorient the viewer. This thesis departs from such representations of depression in film and explores how liminal spaces in film can materialize the complex and sometimes incongruous emotions Esther experiences in The Bell Jar. The scenes in the « volet création » depict an illness that influences the character's cognitive process and her relationship with her surroundings. We have developed three different approaches to conceptualizing liminal spaces on-screen, each approach aiming to elucidate different facets of Esther's depression. The first two explore disorientation, a less detrimental symptom, while the third approach attempts to materialize suicidal ideation. This thesis highlights the capacity of cinema to convey sensory and emotional nuances and is rooted in a belief held within cinema studies that representation leads to democratization, which, in our framework, equates to a better understanding of depression.

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In this dissertation, disability theories frame readings of madness in select works by Shirley Jackson, Sylvia Plath, and Toni Cade Bambara. The dissertation explores the relationship between madness and fiction, with the author demonstrating the productive and generative aspects of madness. Close readings of the literary works emphasize the impact of madness on structural and formal elements including narrative perspective, sustained metaphors, and narrative time. In chapter one, I use the disability theory concepts of narrative prosthesis and aesthetic nervousness to read Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. In chapter 2, I analyze Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle to explore the concept of unreliable narration, observing similarities between the social model of disability and reader-centric theories of unreliable narration. In chapter 3, I explore unhealthy disability and medical treatment in the sustained metaphors of light and darkness in Plath's hospital stories, "Tongues of Stone," "Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams," and "The Daughters of Blossom Street." In chapter 4, I use disability history to read narratives of medical institutionalization in Plath's novel The Bell Jar. In chapter 5, I use Bambara's concept of "other kinds of intelligences" to develop a Black feminist methodology for reading mad intelligences in Bambara's novel The Salt Eaters. In the dissertation's conclusion, I note prejudice against madpersons in recent legal policies promoting involuntary psychiatric institutionalization, using Bambara's short story "The Hammer Man" to demonstrate the violence of such policies.