Articles - Jeet

I bask in dreams of suicide:

1. Empirical studies have established a link between mental illness and creative writers/artists; female poets in particular
2. Poetry attracts more expressive, emotional, "narrative", "legislative" thinkers who are more prone to instability. Depressed women tend to ruminate more than men and writing may have a deleterious effect. The personal nature of poetry attracts emotionally disturbed women looking for an outlet.
   
3. Poetry may not have the same benefits as other creative writing and might adversely impact the artist's internal locus of control, and therefore his or her self esteem. Female poets in particular tend to attribute their accomplishments to an external agent such as a muse.
4. The "gatekeepers" of poetry may have ingrained expectations about the personal nature of a female poet's work and therefore may view the works of emotionally unstable female poets in a more favorable light.
5. Mental illness is more prevalent in the young population and compared to artists and professionals in other fields, poets tend to peak earlier in their lives.
6. Female poets in western society might struggle more than men to deal with the higher expectations that accompany creative success.

The failure of emotional self repair through poetry

1. The dualities - a)Writing for an audience and writing for personal reasons. b) Destructive and constructive activity within writing. c) Fantasy and pretense as opposed to reality. d) Interplay and harmony between content and form
2. In Plath's later years, the emotionally devastating experiences of her life, coupled with her unstable mental state and her narcissistic withdrawal from the world led to her abandoning her controlled traditional style of composing poetry. She adopted a more a much more personal style that let her feelings run loose, only heightening her inner turmoil.

The Fusion of the victim and suicide
I'm not sure if i understand the article. The implication seems to be that Plath's poetry gave her a venue to vent her rage and control her swirling mass of ambivalent emotions. However, in her later years, the creative force weakened and the absence of this coping mechanism led her to kill herself. (?)