Comparison Of Depression In The Big Sur By Jack Kerouac

Saying Sylvia Plath was a troubled woman would be an understatement. She was a dark poet, who attempted suicide many times, was hospitalized in a mental institution, was divorced with two children, and wrote confessional poems about fetuses, reflection, duality, and a female perspective on life. Putting her head in an oven and suffocating was probably the happiest moment in her life, considering she had wanted to die since her early twenties. However, one thing that was somewhat consistent throughout her depressing poetry would be the theme of the female perspective. The poems selected for analysis and comparison are, ”A Life”(1960),”You’re”(1960), “Mirror” (1961), “The Courage of Shutting-Up” (1962) and

Approximately 20 percent of teens will experience depression before they reach adulthood. Neal Shusterman’s character Quinn, is apart of that percentage. The story Blue Diamond tells the story of a teen boy, quinn, whos struggling with depression. His best friend Doug is there with him as quinn told him his plan on ending it all. Quinn is not only spontaneous and manic - depressed, but undoubting in his friend Doug.

A poem that I find relatable is “Ars Poetica?” by Czeslaw Milosz. Milosz’s writing on line twenty-four stood out like a sore thumb to me, “As leafing through a thousand works fresh from psychiatric clinics” (701). I can relate with this because that line sums up poetry, especially when I write it, it’s a therapy session for the author that occasionally helps the reader with their own problems. Poetry is an outlet for expression and decompression helping the author to express their own feelings in a positive manner and occasionally helping the reader to say something they couldn’t find the words for. We are all human and experience the same emotions, it just so happens that sometimes someone else say’s it for us.

“Explaining My Depression to my Mother” is creative as it shows clear examples of unity, virtuosity, originality, and being bigger than the sum of its parts. Benaim’s piece possesses many unifying dynamics. The poet’s consistency of voice throughout the performance leaves the audience hooked on the devastating truths about her depression. Unity is expressed through steady imagery, composed by despondent language and a tremulous stance. These two components create images of isolation and loneliness. For example, one might imagine being a dark room with no doors or windows. Sabrina Benaim’s “Explaining My Depression to my Mother” is a piece of virtuosity. Benaim’s aptitude for performing spoken word is shown through use of tone, metaphors, stance, speed, diction and breathing.

Depression, a common mental disorder that presents with depressed mood, loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-worth, disturbed sleep or appetite, low energy, and poor concentration. This mental illness demonstrates to affect teens as much as it affects adults. Studies show that 20 percent of teens will experience teen depression before they reach adulthood. When you deal with depression, you often find it difficult to live an everyday normal life. The “Catcher in the Rye” written by J.D Salinger, narrates on the main character Holden Caulfield, a hostile and negative person, who suffers from severe depression.

Sylvia Plath is known as a profound writer, depicted by her lasting works of literature and her suicide which put her poems and novel of debilitating depression into a new perspective. In her poem “Lady Lazarus,” written in 1962, her mental illness is portrayed in a means to convey to her readers the everyday struggle of depression, and how it affects her view of her world, herself, and even those who attempt to tackle her battle with her. This poem, among other poetry pieces and her novel The Bell Jar, identify her multiple suicide attempts, and how the art of dying is something she has become a master of. Plath’s “Lady Lazarus,” about her trap of depression and suicide attempts, is effective and thought provoking because of her allusions to WWII Nazi Germany and the feelings of oppression and Nazism that the recurring images evoke.

Sylvia Plath, a successful confessional style poet, struggled throughout her life with issues revolving around her father’s death, unsuccessful and unfulfilling relationships with men, and her mental illnesses. Throughout her struggles, Plath wrote, sometimes writing as much as 10 drafts a day. Despite welcoming into the world two children, whom she loved dearly, Plath still felt unfulfilled by her duties as a housewife. As she wrote more poems, it became clear she was unhappy in her life and in the grips of a serious mental illness. Sylvia Plath’s writing is deeply influenced by her experience with mental illness and the death of her father in her early life.

In the book, Crazy like Us a cultural feedback loop is a new tend coming up like for example is an increase in certain disease and then the media publicizes it. When the new trend is more public, more people are concerned they have it that leads to people seeking professional help. In the book, certain diseases that orientated in one place in the world shows up in another place, but has slight variations that feed off each other to create a cultural feedback loop. An example of a feedback loop was in the last study was focused on anti-depressions in japan, and how Depression is perceived. Drug companies are sweetening up researchers, and presenters to have their research show that anti-depressants can help people who suffer depression in japan.

Eileen M. Aird analyzes and comments, “The danger of such criticism lies in its assumption that the poem is objectively ‘true’, that it bears a precise relationship to the facts of the poet’s life.” The direct criticism Plath puts upon her father is very crucial, yet evidently true if one was research her life. Sylvia Plath’s autobiographical poetry can be easily connected to her life and the answers to the many questions are easier to uncover than one may suspect. As her poetry developed, it became more autobiographical and although through her teenage years she possessed what seemed to be a rounded personality, the anguish and grief of her father’s death was easily linked with her mental instability that haunted her in the later years.

An exceptional poem can move the reader to a new consciousness. It becomes more than words pieced together to make a rhyme, and evokes true emotion that is palpable. One of the most influential authors that contributed to this experience was Edgar Allan Poe. His work is almost immediately recognizable due to his common motif that is both melancholy and mysterious. Much of his writing concerns love and loss, such as in his poem “Annabel Lee.” The essence of this work is endless love and the death of a beautiful young girl. It is thought by many that most of his literature mirrors his actual life, which was riddled with heartbreak and sorrow. It is evident from the mood and setting of his writing that he dealt with a lot of

Robert Frost is an iconic poet in American literature today, and is seen as one of the most well known, popular, or respected twentieth century American poets. In his lifetime, Frost received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry, and the Congressional Gold Medal. However, Robert Frost’s life was not always full of fame and wealth; he had a very difficult life from the very beginning. At age 11, his father died of tuberculosis; fifteen years later, his mother died of cancer. Frost committed his younger sister to a mental hospital, and many years later, committed his own daughter to a mental hospital as well. Both Robert and his wife Elinor suffered from depression throughout their lives, but considering the premature deaths of three of their children and the suicide of another, both maintained sanity very well. (1)

People dealing with depression might ask the same question that he was asking, why am I here. So, I think that Walt Whitman wrote a very important poem. If people read this poem they can relate, and this poem can also help people understand their life. The answer part could tell them because it means to be happy who you are. There is no other person that is like you.

Poetry is a type of literature that uses rhythmical composition to implement the reader with beautiful, imaginative or elevated thoughts (dictionary.com). Two of the finest poems during their time were“Mirror”, by Sylvia Plath, and “Suicide Note”, by Janice Mirikitani. Sylvia Plath was a troubled poet; throughout her life she had dealt with major depression. During college she attempted to put an end to her life by taking sleeping pills; she was placed in a mental institute and was treated with electroconvulsive shock treatment. A few years later after graduating from college she got married to a fellow poet, Ted Hughes. Four years later, Hughes and Plath had their first child followed by their second child two years after. After seven years of marriage, in 1962, her husband left her for another woman which a few months later she committed suicide by using a gas oven (Wagner- Martin 4). Plath was not the only poet out of the two that had to deal with hardship. Janice Mirikitani is an Asian American activist that was born in Stockton California. Her and her family were incarcerated during World War II in an camp in Arkansas. After being released from the camp, her father and mother separated. Her mother remarried and moved to rural Petaluma. Mirikitani at the age of five had to bear years of hardship of emotional isolation, poverty and sexual abuse by her stepfather that lasted practically a decade. These dramatic events in her life, caused her to

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) and Anne Sexton (1928-1974) both explored similar themes such as tone, structure, and symbolism. Many of their poems were cries for help, which resulted into metal illness, depression, and suicide. In 1958, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath met, and much to their surprise had a few things in common. They both were fascinated with death and suicide. Both Sexton’s and Plath’s poetry are considered as confessional poetry in which they were very honest, depressed, and had suicidal or homicidal tendencies. Sylvia and Anne’s views on what happened in their life and on independence, are what nearly separates them from other confessional poets. Sexton and Plath’s poetry range over a variety of topics such as death, suicide, rage, and mourning. They both utilize a convincing use of symbolism, deep image, metaphors, and soul-searching. Plath’s “The Colossus”, “Full Fathom Five”, “Daddy”, and Sexton’s “And one for My Dame” and “All My Pretty Ones”, are very enraged and different feminist perspectives, giving different views on the relationships with a father and a husband.

I want you to stop and think about tone in day to day conversations. It mostly depends on the body language, volume of voice, and pitch of the person speaking. Written poems, on the other hand, develop their tone through imagery, language use, and form. To show this, I will be using the poem “Tonight I can write” by analyzing how Pablo Neruda works with distant imagery, nostalgic past tense, and repetitive form to develop a grief-filled tone. Through my analysis, I will be mentioning that the author generates loneliness in the persona. I expect the reader to agree that solitude is a state naturally feared and unwanted by humankind because of our undeniable biological drive to reproduce and survive, which requires the company of others. With that being said, I hope that we can assume loneliness is essentially connected to grief.