#otto plath

[loveisadog]

known as；　otto (she/he)

bd； 09.14. 6teen !

writers； jeannette winterson, jenny hval, sylvia plath, eve babitz, ottessa moshfegh, virginia woolf, keaton st. james, frank bidart(…)

singers；　lana del rey, ethel cain, marina, jenny hval, ladytron, mitski, tv girl, caviar noir, bambi baker, baby bugs.

! none of photos posted are mine until sayed so🦢

pinterest</3 tikt0k

[cinnnam0nngir16]

Plath's "Daddy" and the Electra complex

“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.” 

From the tragedy of Oedipus’ inescapable curse of killing his father and marrying his mother, to a vindictive Electra seeking punishment of her mother for her deceased father, Greek mythology played an important role in conceptualising the relationship between a child and their parent of the opposite sex. Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud proposed the well-known theory of Oedipus complex in 1899, which is a man’s desire for his mother and a sense of rivalry with his father. The electra complex is the opposite -- it is the daughter’s attachment to her father, when not resolved in childhood, it could lead to serious  confusion and frustration in self-identity and adapting to societal gender roles in adulthood. The famous controversial and revolutionary poet Sylvia Plath had a similar destructive relationship with her father. American poet Robert Pinsky described her writing as “Thrashing, hyperactive and perpetually accelerated.” 

The overwhelmingly uncanny feeling in Plath’s poem “Daddy” reveals a vivid, haunting image of her strained relationships with the two dominant male figures in her life -- her father Otto Plath and her husband, Ted Hughes. The Electra complex is displayed both in Plath’s literature and life, which are being repeatedly studied and compared. In her poem Daddy, the speaker spoke of her lost connection with her father, therefore her unknown root, and a loss of identity. She expressed confusion, frustration and even a morbid desire to reach him beyond life. The poem speaks through a woman’s yearning to heal her open wound of losing her father at a young age, to recover him, understand him and forgive him. The entire poem looms under an eerily childish tone, whereas the speaker’s desperation and insanity seeps through the lines. The unresolved pain that rooted from the death of Plath’s father left her on edge for many years. Her poem “Daddy” is a poetic masterpiece that covers the themes of trauma, female oppression and death. It is interesting to apply the Freudian Electra complex lens to the poem and scrutinise it from a psychoanalytic perspective, to further understand the speaker’s state of mind from a scientific angle and establish a profound connection to the poem. I will argue that the Freudian Electra complex assists the reader in understanding the dynamics between the speaker and her father, as it is a representation of Plath herself and her life-long grapple with the memories of her father -- love, hatred and confusion, which ultimately caused her to marry someone who resembled her father in many ways.  I will also explore the relationship between patriarchy and the Electra Complex-- the reason why she seeks her father’s shadow in her husband is because of her yearning to sustain herself with a specific masculine control. And conflictingly, whether the Electra complex is a valid theory to justify the male oppression behind  female’s depression. 

In the poem “Daddy”, the speaker harks back to a splitting image of her father, displaying clear confusion in what he meant to her as a young girl. “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.” -- the speaker’s voice and Sylvia’s own trauma are intertwined throughout the entire poem, she expressed an overwhelming sense of abandonment, an uncertainty in who she was due to the lack of communication and connection with her father. The unresolved conflicting emotions left her in complete disarray: she had a shifting self image and was overwhelmed by her identity as a woman in society, a daughter, a shadow of a young girl. This is directly caused by the Electra complex. “Every woman adores a facist. The boot in the face. The brute. Brute heart of a brute like you.” -- This line is addressed to her father as she expresses her need for someone with her father’s brutality and cold heart. This is further explored in a psychological analysis of the Electra complex written by doctor Kendra Cherry, in which she stated that “Freud believed that it was this process that also led children to accept their gender roles, develop an understanding of their own sexuality, and even form a sense of morality.” The speaker(as well as Plath herself) is seeking a sense of control through this line, a “fascist”, a dictatorial, patriarchal figure who overpowers her and puts her down, in a sense where she is treated roughly and cruelly by the man. As Doctor Cherry said, the progress of the electra complex can fluctuate a woman’s acceptance of her sexuality: the speaker finds it hard to express her feelings, she even speaks for all women that “every woman adores a facist”. The electra complex suggests that the speaker’s morals and values are altered by her infatuation with her father’s mysterious life and early death: she believes that all women are meant to be trapped and treated brutally by men, and paints the picture of females being submissive and vulnerable. The concept of the speaker needing a paternal figure who constantly puts her down and controls her is a direct link to the Fruedian lens, it makes an implicit reference to Doctor Cherry’s analysis: the speaker in the poem/Plath has an “immoral” understanding of her relationship with men as she searches frantically for her identity and looks for a husband who is reminiscent of her father’s image. The Electra complex helps the reader understand the psychological underlayer of the relationship between Plath and her father: the daughter is confused by the dynamics of a healthy relationship and the partner she desires due to the early death of her father. The unresolved complications between the father-daughter relationship makes it extremely difficult for the woman to adapt to a patriarchal society due to her confusion around women’s place in society. 

However, the electra complex also challenges the speaker to break free from submissiveness. We see the concept of women coming to terms with their gender role in the poem, making a connection between the absence of fatherhood and female empowerment: “Daddy, I’ve had to kill you.” and “If I've killed one man, I’ve killed two.” The speaker used the strong word “kill”, which indicates that the roles are ultimately reversed as she gains power and domination, in contrast to her previous victimisation of women and men being “brutes”. The father/husband are metaphorically being compared to a Nazi and Vampires, displaying the power they have over the female speaker who claims to be a Jew and someone with a “pretty red heart”, showcasing women’s vulnerability in the face of men. The vulnerability and submissiveness oppresses the female speaker as she comes to term with her gender role. Under the reading of the Freudian lens, we can see that this empowerment can be seen as a surprising outcome of a female shifting her sense of morality and striving for control and power due to an unresolved Electra complex -- the speaker’s confusion and frustration regarding a healthy relationship eventually drives her to break free from the oppressive nature of patriarchy.

(Part 1)

[dustyandforgotten]

LITERATURE; Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Idiot. / Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis. / Brontë Sisters: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights. / Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar. / Emily Dickinson: Because I Could Not Stop for Death and Hope is the Thing with Feathers. / Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice, and Emma. / Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes Series. / And of course, Edgar Allan Poe: The Black Cat, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven, And The Tell-tale Heart.

SINGERS; Mitski, Iron & Wine, Novo Amor, Bon Iver, Angelo de Augustine, Bambi Baker, Men I Trust, Beabadoobee, Clairo, Cocteau Twins, Ricky Montgomery, Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams, Laufey, Soko, Stephen Sanchez, Sleeping at Last, and many more that are yet to be revealed.

SERIES; Gossip Girl, Modern Family, Game of Thrones, Gotham Series, 1899, Dark Series, Gilmore Girls, The End of the Fucking World, et cetera.

MOVIES; Good Will Hunting, Dead Poets Society, Before Trilogy, Forrest Gump, Monster (2023), Abbas Kiarostami movies, Saving Private Ryan, The Pale Blue Eye, A Man Called Otto, Fast and Furious franchise, Enola Holmes, The Shawshank Redemption, Little Women, Flipped, The Virgin Suicides, 10 Things I Hate About You, et cetera.

OTHERS; Mumuhug, Scooby-doo, Thewizardliz, TEDTALKS, My Little Pony, One Piece, Black Clover, Bungou Stray Dogs, Kimetsu No Yaiba, Attack On Titan, Owari No Seraph, Ghibli Studio movie, et cetera.

[vanessasisomonter]

SYLVIA PLATH

9 de Agosto 2023 - Sylvia plath Escritora estadounidense que ganó el Premio Pulitzer en 1982. Considerada una de las cultivadoras del género de la poesía confesional.

Sylvia Plath, llamada Sivvy familiarmente, nació el 27 de octubre del año 1932 en la ciudad de Boston, Massachusetts (Estados Unidos). Era hija de los maestros Otto Emil Plath, profesor universitario de Alemán y Biología en la Universidad de Boston (además de especialista en abejas), y Aurelia Schober, profesora de Inglés y Alemán. Sufrió habituales depresiones y varios desórdenes…

[julictcapulet]

Book recs plz!!! 😰😘🤞

the way the kiss emoji is literally my girlfriend...wow <3

desperate characters by paula fox. a really sharp and unsettling depiction of class, marriage, obligation, and responsibility told through a narrow lens that focuses on sophie and otto's slowly devolving marriage and how their lives are mingled with intimacy and hysteria.

the razor's edge by w. somerset maugham. a modern classic which picks apart the unflattering truth that getting what you want will not always make you happy through the exploration of themes such as: the american dream being dead, materialism vs. fulfillment, and the complexities of human relationships and our love for one other.

trainwreck: the women we love to hate, mock, and fear...and why by sady doyle. a nonfiction collection that travels through the years exploring the different women societies have labelled as "trainwrecks" and why we have chosen to punish them for their "crimes", including sections on amy winehouse, britney spears, mary wollstonecraft, charlotte brontë, billie holiday, and sylvia plath.

[thecolossuspoem]

About Plath

Sylvia Plath’s mother Aurelia Schober was a Student at Boston University when she met the man that would become her husband, her professor at the time Otto Plath. They were married in 1932 and had their child Sylvia Plath later that same year in Boston, Massachusetts. Otto Plath was a strict father which Sylvia detailed along with the impact of his death in her poetry from very early on. She kept a Journal from age 11 and began publishing her poems just after she graduated highschool in 1950. Although her father died when she was just eight years old, his death is the catalyst to the type of poet Sylvia Plath would become.

Plath is widely known as a Confessional poet, her poetry is characterized by its deeply personal and emotional content, its use of autobiographical elements, and its willingness to confront taboo subjects, such as mental illness, suicide, and gender roles. Plath's frankness and honesty in her poetry, as well as her willingness to explore the darker aspects of human experience, were a departure from the more traditional and formal poetry that was popular at the time.

Plath's influence on other poets who wrote in the confessional mode cannot be overstated. Many poets who came after her, including Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, and John Berryman, were inspired by her work and adopted a similar confessional style. In fact, some critics argue that without Plath, the confessional poetry movement might not have existed at all.

Overall, Sylvia Plath's impact on confessional poetry can be seen in the way her work helped to define the genre and inspire a new generation of poets to explore their own personal experiences and emotions in their writing.

[elskanellis]

Daddy: 1933

Geoffrey Brock

If one takes a walk on a clear sunny day in middle April,

when the first willows are in bloom, one may often see

young bumblebee queens eagerly sipping nectar from the catkins—

thus begins the one book written by Otto Emil Plath.

It is a delightful thing to pause and watch these queens, clad

in their costumes of rich velvet, their wings not yet torn—

he wrote it the year after Sylvia was born— by the long foraging

flights which they will be obliged to take later.

[lovingsylvia]

The “Sylvia Plath Calendar” - 90 years ago today: Otto Emil Plath married Aurelia Frances Schober on Monday, 4 January 1932 at the Ormsby County courthouse in a civil ceremony in Carson City, Nevada. From ‘Rough Magic: A Biography of Sylvia Plath’ (1991) by Paul Alexander: “Drawn closer together by the letters they had exchanged that summer, Otto and Aurelia began dating when Aurelia returned to Boston in September to assume the Brookline High School faculty post she had been offered. Almost immediately, weekend hiking trips, afternoon strolls through the Arnold Arboretum, and nights at the theatre launched the couple into a serious romance. Before long, they openly discussed marriage. Finally, just after Christmas 1931, they left Boston by car and, chaperoned by Aurelia’s mother, drove cross-country to Carson City, Nevada, where on Monday, January 4, 1932, Otto filed for and received a divorce from Lydia Bartz, the woman he had not seen in over a decade. Later that same day, Otto Plath and Aurelia Schober, each of whom swore in writing to be a current resident of Reno, Nevada, were married in a civil ceremony in Carson City, at Ormsby County’s courthouse. Following a honeymoon in Nevada, the Plaths, still accompanied by Aurelia’s mother, drove back to Boston to begin their married life. Aurelia moved into Otto’s apartment, a six-room first-floor rental in a house at 24 Prince Street in Jamaica Plain. Before she could resume her teaching job at Brookline High, Otto insisted that she resign, which she did even though she was a successful teacher and probable future chairman of the German Department. Otto wanted Aurelia to become a full-time housewife, and he wished to start a family as soon as possible. In fact, they would become parents much sooner than even Otto had hoped: only weeks into the marriage Aurelia became pregnant (with Sylvia).” . If you want to learn more about Otto’s and Aurelia’s family histories, I can definitely recommend Alexander’s ‘Rough Magic’, as it provides many details. . . Photo: Sylvia Plath (9 months old) with her parents in July 1933 at the Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts (Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College, Northampton, MA, USA) #sylviaplath #onthisday https://www.instagram.com/p/CYUmECVL2tD/?utm_medium=tumblr

[flergblerg]

Petition for every single male author who basically erased their wives thankless contributions to their writing and/or made their wives type or hand write their manuscripts to have their wives all get posthumous writing credit for the work only the husbands got credit for

Otto Plath got sole credit for writing “Bumblebees and their Ways”

I guess this is similar to that one hashtag there was a while ago called #ThanksForTyping, but.....

[beautynursedondarkness-blog]

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. by Sylvia Plath, 1962

[meanqueens]

Daddy, you can lie back now.

[paperandpencilskirts]

I got drunk and realized a piano piece I wrote forever ago just happens to have the same measure as Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy.”  So here you go, a drunken rendition thrown together more or less on the spot.  I still like it even though I mess up a bunch.  I’ll eventually post a polished version, but for now, here ya’ go netherworld.

[derangedrhythms]

This underworld [...] is her heart’s home.

Ted Hughes, Birthday Letters; from ‘A Picture of Otto’

[carmenvicinanza]

Sylvia Plath

https://www.unadonnalgiorno.it/sylvia-plath/

Sylvia Plath, autrice statunitense, la più importante rappresentante della ‘poesia confessionale’.

Una donna geniale e tormentata che ha sofferto per tutta la vita di una grave forma di depressione ricorrente tra periodi di intensa vitalità.

Nota soprattutto per le sue poesie, scrisse anche un romanzo autobiografico, La campana di vetro (The Bell Jar), vari racconti e un dramma teatrale. Tenne anche un diario nel corso della sua vita che venne pubblicato postumo, anche se alcune parti furono distrutte da suo marito, Ted Hughes.

La fama, arrivata dopo il suo suicidio, portò a un riconoscimento del valore letterario delle sue opere al punto che, nel 1982, venne insignita del Premio Pulitzer postumo per la sua intera produzione poetica.

Sylvia Plath nacque a Boston il 27 ottobre 1932. Sua madre, Aurelia Schober, era di origine austriaca, suo padre, Otto Emil Plath, entomologo di origine tedesca, morì poco prima che lei compisse 8 anni, nello stesso periodo ha pubblicato la sua prima poesia. La perdita del genitore lasciò il primo segno indelebile nella sua esistenza.

Nel 1950 iniziò a frequentare lo Smith College, rinomata università femminile del Massachusetts, nel 1953 passò un mese a New York per fare uno stage nella rivista Mademoiselle. In quel periodo ebbe la sua prima crisi depressiva, ricoverata e sottoposta alla terapia dell’elettroshock, fece il suo primo tentativo di suicidio.

La storia raccontata in La campana di vetro è ispirata a quel periodo, la protagonista Esther Greenwood, suo alter ego, vive un’esperienza molto simile alla sua.

Dopo un periodo di cura, la giovane e brillante studentessa tornò all’università e si laureò nel 1955. Nel 1956 vinse una borsa di studio per Cambridge dove incontrò il poeta britannico Ted Hughes, che sposò dopo pochi mesi e con cui ebbe una relazione malata, difficile e straziante. La coppia, inizialmente visse negli Stati Uniti, dove lei, per un periodo, insegnò nella sua vecchia università.

A Boston, partecipò a un seminario di scrittura creativa con Robert Lowell che ebbe una grande influenza sulla sua scrittura. Sua collega, amica e rivale era Anne Sexton, altra importante esponente della poesia confessionale, con cui condivise anche il tragico epilogo.

Alla fine del 1959, la coppia soggiornò a Yaddo, famosa colonia per artisti, periodo che segnò con grande intensità la sua produzione e la portò a scrivere molte delle poesie che verranno poi contenute nella sua prima raccolta, The Colossus.

Si trasferirono poi in Inghilterra dove nacque la loro primogenita, Frieda. Nel febbraio 1961 Sylvia Plath subì un aborto spontaneo a seguito di un episodio di violenza fisica da parte di suo marito. Questo drammatico evento compare in varie poesie e in lettere scritte alla sua terapista.

Nell’estate dello stesso anno terminò il suo primo e unico romanzo, La campana di vetro che incontrò vari rifiuti di pubblicazione negli Stati Uniti.

Successivamente, subaffittarono il loro appartamento di Londra a una coppia con cui diventarono amici, David e Assia Wevill, e si stabilirono nelle campagne del Devon. Lì Sylvia Plath provò a portare avanti l’illusione di poter avere una vita perfetta come aveva sempre sognato.

Nel 1962 nacque il loro secondo figlio Nicholas ma, subito dopo, il matrimonio si incrinò definitivamente. Suo marito la tradiva continuamente, aveva una relazione con la loro inquilina che era rimasta incinta di lui. Umiliata e delusa, lo cacciò di casa. Si separarono alla fine di quell’estate.

Seguì un trasferimento a Londra con i figli, periodo fecondo di sue poesie, in cui ebbe grandi difficoltà economiche. Fu un inverno particolarmente rigido, in cui dovette prendersi cura da sola di due bambini piccoli e spesso malati.

Nel gennaio del 1963 La campana di vetro, editato in Gran Bretagna, con lo pseudonimo Victoria Lucas, venne praticamente ignorato dalla critica. Negli Stati Uniti fu pubblicato soltanto nel 1971.

In mezzo a questi problemi, Sylvia Plath ebbe nuovi episodi di forte depressione, l’11 febbraio 1963, dopo soltanto un mese dalla pubblicazione del suo libro, si tolse la vita.

Verso le 4.30 di mattina, sigillò porta e finestre della cucina e mise la testa nel forno a gas, non prima di aver preparato pane, burro e due tazze di latte e aver spalancato la finestra della camera dei suoi bambini. Aveva l’ossessione di essere perfetta, in ogni cosa che faceva, dalla casalinga alla scrittrice, non si sentiva mai abbastanza somigliante all’idea che aveva di se stessa. E progettò anche il suicidio perfetto. Forse non intendeva davvero morire, altre volte aveva tentato di ammazzarsi, ma quella tragica volta, a soli 31 anni, fu quella definitiva.

Aveva iniziato a lavorare a un nuovo romanzo, con il titolo provvisorio di Double Exposure, ritrovato dopo la sua morte, e di cui si ritiene che il marito ne abbia distrutto alcune parti. Ancora una volta un testo autobiografico, con tante similitudini tra i comportamenti libertini e egoisti di suo marito con quello della protagonista del libro.

La sua seconda raccolta di poesie, Ariel, venne pubblicata postuma e alterata da Hughes, nel 1965. Nel 2004 la figlia Frieda diede alle stampe una versione restaurata, Ariel: The Restored Edition, col manoscritto originale.

Cinquanta anni dopo la tragica morte di Sylvia Plath, sono emerse alcune lettere inedite indirizzate alla sua psicanalista che narrano di aggressioni, abusi e minacce di morte da parte del marito.

Sylvia Plath è stata la poeta più importante della sua generazione, e per ironia del fato, lei, che aveva l’ossessione della precisione, questa gloria non l’ha mai vissuta. Tante le sue biografie che si sono succedute nel corso degli anni, osannata dalla critica che l’aveva snobbata in vita, non è sopravvissuta alla consacrazione della sua arte.

[willkommen-in-germany]

Am Pferdemarkt in Grabow

Grabow is a town in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Northeastern Germany, situated on the river Elde, 7 km from Ludwigslust, and 34 km from Wittenberge. The name is of Slavic Polabian origin. Pope Urban III. mentions castle Grabow for the first time in a letter from 1186. The city received city law in 1252. In 1725, it was destroyed by a great fire. The local palace was never rebuilt. The historical center is distinguished by its close core of timber-framed houses.

Otto Plath, the father of writer and poet Sylvia Plath, emigrated from Grabow to the USA. The painter Wilhelm Langschmidt was born in Grabow and settled in the Elgin valley in South Africa. The town which grew around his trading store there still bears the name Grabouw, after his hometown.

[poetrybysp]

Mr Wilson explained how the death of Otto had severely effected her many years earlier. He said: 'I suppose you could say she had an Electra complex. She adored him, but then hated him when he left her by dying.' In her poem Daddy, she referred to her suicide attempt in 1953. She wrote: 'At twenty I tried to die / And get back, back, back to you.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2276480/Sylvia-Plath-tried-slit-throat-10-death-father-claims-new-book.html