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We conclude our literary excavations from the “Rotting Apple Cores” entry, as lovely Sylvia fixes on her unique identity as against all the other billions in the world, and on the fateful play of accident and destiny.
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As for free will, there is such a narrow crack in it for man to move in, crushed as he is from birth by environment, heredity, time and event and local convention. If I had been born of Italian parents in one of the caves in the hills I would be a prostitute at the age of twelve or so because I had to live (why?) and that was the only way open. If I were born into a wealthy New York family with pseudo-cultural leanings, I would have had my coming-out party along with the rest of them, and be equipped with fur coats, social contacts, and a blasé pout. How do I know? I don’t; I can only guess. I wouldn’t be I. But I am I now; and so many other millions are so irretrievably their own special variety of “I” that I can hardly bear to think of it. I: how firm a letter; how reassuring the three strokes: one vertical, proud and assertive, and then the two short horizontal lines in quick, smug succession. The pen scratches on the paper... I... I... I... I... I... I.
-- Sylvia Plath, The Journals
_ _ _
The pen scratches on the paper...
What is this she speaks of??
_ _ _
As for free will, there is such a narrow crack in it for man to move in, crushed as he is from birth by environment, heredity, time and event and local convention. If I had been born of Italian parents in one of the caves in the hills I would be a prostitute at the age of twelve or so because I had to live (why?) and that was the only way open. If I were born into a wealthy New York family with pseudo-cultural leanings, I would have had my coming-out party along with the rest of them, and be equipped with fur coats, social contacts, and a blasé pout. How do I know? I don’t; I can only guess. I wouldn’t be I. But I am I now; and so many other millions are so irretrievably their own special variety of “I” that I can hardly bear to think of it. I: how firm a letter; how reassuring the three strokes: one vertical, proud and assertive, and then the two short horizontal lines in quick, smug succession. The pen scratches on the paper... I... I... I... I... I... I.
-- Sylvia Plath, The Journals
_ _ _
The pen scratches on the paper...
What is this she speaks of??
