For my essay, I’m analysing themes of female mental health, alienation, and feminism, with a focus on Sylvia Plath’s “ariel” Plath’s exploration of mental anguish, identity, and the pressures of societal expectations offers a powerful feminist critique, and I’m looking to compare this with other books or collections with similar themes.
I’m especially interested in recommendations that, like “ariel” examine the struggles of mental illness, alienation, and the female experience under patriarchy. It has to be pre-1900.
Any suggestions of a pre-1900 book with a similar theme that I could compare it with…?
Thank you!
by Longjumping-Fan-5960
1 Comment
try sofia tolstoy! haven’t read her work yet, but I’ve seen quotes from her diaries, and she really captured feelings of isolation, despair, worthlessness, etc.
some quotes:
“I was wondering today why there were no women writers, artists, or composers of genius. it’s because all the passion . . . of an energetic woman is consumed by her family, love, her husband – and especially her children . . . when she has finished bearing and educating her children, her artistic needs awaken, but by then it’s too late, for by then it’s impossible to develop anything.”
(about her marriage with leo):
“I am to gratify his pleasure and nurse his child, I am a piece of household furniture, I am a *woman*. I try to suppress all human feelings.”