Things of Momentary Interest

Sylvia Plath
She has always been someone that I found interest in. I remember reading one of her poems in high school and then our teacher telling us that she stuck her head in an oven to kill herself. Turns out that she made trips to the loony bin and was perscribed anti-depressants. That's not the part that interests me the most though. I mean, killing yourself with an oven is pretty weird...but I think her relationship with Ted Hughes is something that piques more curiousity. It's like her depression calmed after she met him. That she found love and was content. They fell in love through poetry. Two people who compulsively write and whose feelings are always on the verge of bubbling over. I bet they had some pretty juicy fights. But Ted Hughes cheated. He started having sex with some woman who was renting an old home from both him and Sylvia. And so they split. She was put on some anti-depressant pills and then she either intentionally or was just trying to get a reaction out of someone...she killed herself. Some people think Ted Hughes did it because her journals and several pieces of her work went "missing" after she died. And then his mistress killed herself shortly thereafter too. I feel pity for ole Syl. It's like everything was the way it should've been...one day she was writing love letters to her husband about bees and the next he's disappointing her by sleeping with someone else. Like most men. Well, most PEOPLE. Women are just as equally guilty of disappointing. 


Eva Braun
She was Hitler's wife of 36 hours/mistress (apparently, I'm on a mistress kick). So little is said of her. She tried to kill herself twice. Some say to keep Hitler's interest. She was soo depressed and was left alone many times to her own devices. She was held in private in a seperate chamber away from Hitler. She wasn't allowed to dye her hair or even wear it up because he didn't like her "change of appearance". You'd think she was being held captive against her will. But she expressed love for him. And even though he hated animal cruelty (which, by the way, how can you KILL innocent people but be a vegitarian??), he let her use cosmetics made from animals. He let her sunbathe naked even though he hated it. She pretty much did whatever she wanted, but she was unhappy. He was heard saying that an intelligent man should always want of a "primitive, stupid woman" in front of her. How can you love a man who basically orders you around and then calls you stupid? Was she stupid? A close friend of Hitler's said that she would "disappoint historians". Is this because she really was a stupid woman? Sometimes I want to think that she was, because I can't imagine a woman going through everything she went through and then chewing on cyanide to kill yourself for a man. But a part of me wants to believe that she was a woman who hoped for the love of a man who could never love her as fiercely. A woman who watched romantic movies and wished she wasn't left alone at night to hold herself. A woman who knew only of the best of the man she loved and didn't know his cruelty. Because then that would be more satisfying than a stupid woman who tries to kill herself for attention.

Jane Eyre
I read this novel in high school, and I only cared for the first couple of chapters where Jane goes to Lowood. But I read it again out of curiousity/boredom. It's probably one of the best love stories ever written. It's real and not flowery and Harlequin-like. I like it...no....love it. A little girl grows up with no love and then discovers it in a man twice her age. A man who has deemed himself unworthy of love and feasts on lust instead of commitment falls in love with an innocent girl. But he has to lose his pride to gain her heart and she has to learn to make independent choices and stand alone to truly appreciate his love. Maybe in real life men don't have crazy secret lunatic wives in their attic, but it's true that in love, there's sacrifice. There's compromise. In order to love someone, you have to let your walls down and rely on them. You have to focus on honesty and love someone for their flaws and mistakes. And I think that message is beautiful. Even if I never find that in real life.

Divergent
I read this new novel by Veronica Roth. It's Hunger Games-ish. It's pretty good. I like the dystopian society themes in most science fiction novels. And this is purely that. Future Chicago is broken into five groups: Amity (peaceful), Erudite (intelligent), Abnegation (selflessness), Candor (honesty) and Dauntless (bravery). Everyone must choose the category in which they will inhibit when they turn 16. Just like how 18 year olds now have to decide their whole lives and determine their choice of career/college. The story is supposed to look at how bravery and selflessness are the same...but it's really just a love story. That's okay though. Science fiction love stories are the best. Definitely worth the read, by the way.