Silvia Plath

     I thought that it was interesting as I read Lady Lazarus by Silvia Plath that it kept running through my mind that the speaker was either speaking about suicide or divorce throughout most of the poem.  I had not yet read Plath's biography.  I followed up by reading her biography to see if I was right on one of those guesses.  As it turns out, I was correct on both counts.
     Lady Lazarus seems to be able to rise from the dead.  The death of her father was the first time she died.  Her first suicide attempt was the second time.  This poem is about the divorce:  "This is Number Three. / What a trash / To annihilate each decade" (Lines 19-21).  Each decade of her life was marked by a significant tragedy:  the death of her father when she was eight, her attempted suicide in college, and the divorce from her husband in her early thirties.  It helps to read her biography and reread the poem to see how Plath refers to the second time she "died":

                                            "The second time I meant
                                             To last it out and not come back at all.
                                             I rocked shut

                                             As a seashell.
                                             They had to call and call
                                             And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls."  (Lines 37-42)

Her many references to Nazi behavior seem to be a statement as to her suffering.  She is comparing both her father and her ex-husband to Nazis.  To be honest, reading about how her ex-husband "edited" her poetry after her death, I'm thinking that she was not far off in that comparison.
       I really didn't know whether I would enjoy Silvia Plath's poetry or not.  I knew the name of course, but I had never read her poetry.  To be perfectly honest, I went into it not expecting a great deal.  It has been my experience in this class that some of the things that I don't expect much out of end up surprising me.  I didn't think to much of Ginsberg when I heard a recitation.  Then I read Howl and was sorry that I had judged so harshly before.  Silvia Plath was the same way.  I enjoyed Lady Lazarus a great deal.  While I have not enjoyed everything that I have had to read for this class, I have been pleasantly surprised by a great deal of it.  While much of the reading was not what I would have chosen, it was what was necessary to open my mind to some new poets and writers that I had not previously considered.  For that, I am thankful.  After all, that was the purpose of taking the class.

A Streetcar Named Desire

     When it comes to plays, whether I am acting in them or just reading them, I prefer not to see them on film or onstage until after I have read them and made up my own mind how a character is to be portrayed.  Most times when you see the movie or the play before reading it, you will always picture that actor's portrayal of the character from that point on.  If you see it before acting in it, you will unintentionally or intentionally act out that character the same way you have seen it acted out.  That just seems to be the way it is.
     With Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, I had seen neither of the films, nor had I seen it onstage before reading it.  I have since watched the film versions, both with Marlon Brando/Vivien Leigh and with Alec Baldwin/Jessica Lange.  I have to say that both Leigh and Lange played the character of Blanche DuBois a little more crazy than I would have thought.  True, she was a bit dillusional and was even more so after the assault by Stanley.  I just did not picture her as that downright batshit.  I will say that Leigh was much closer to what I had pictured.  Lange went over the top with the craziness.  The character of Stanley, on the other hand, was pretty much as I had seen him.  Brando, of course, doing the much better job of acting the part.  Baldwin had his moments and he is not a terrible actor, but he is no Marlon Brando.  On a surprising note, though I am a fan of John Goodman, I did not care for him in the role of Mitch.
     All things considered, though the Brando/Leigh film version was not quite as true to the original play, it is the much better film adaptation.  The acting was superior by far.  There is a great deal of merit to the newer version but the classic is still the best.  It is difficult to take on a role that has been done so well to be deemed a classic and still be able to make it your own.  I give Kudos to the cast of the newer version for trying but you just cannot live up to the original.