...we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail among sacred islands of the mad till death shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.
To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects a sense of confinement and despair, portraying a distorted perception of reality.
In this quote, Sylvia Plath uses the metaphor of a 'bell jar' to illustrate the feeling of being trapped in a suffocating environment. The imagery of a 'dead baby' suggests lifelessness and hopelessness, conveying how the person experiences the world as an oppressive and nightmarish reality. It highlights the struggles of mental illness and the isolation that often accompanies it, as well as the distortion of reality that can occur when one feels trapped in their own mind.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about mental health awareness, this quote could be used to illustrate the feeling of despair experienced by those suffering from depression.
More from Sylvia Plath
All quotes βThe hardest thing, I think, is to live richly in the present, without letting it be tainted & spoiled out of fear for the future or regret for a badly-managed past.
It is as if my life were magically run by two electric currents: joyous positive and despairing negative--which ever is running at the moment dominates my life, floods it.
You walked in, laughing, tears welling confused, mingling in your throat. How can you be so many women to so many people, oh you strange girl?
I keep wanting to crawl back into the womb.
It's the living, the eating, the sleeping that everyone needs. Ideas don't matter so much after all. My three best friends are Catholic. I can't see their beliefs, but I can see the things they love to do on earth. When you come right down to it, I do believe in the freedom of the individual.
Similar quotes
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who will watch the watchers?
More than ever I find myself in the hands of God. This (illness) is what I have wanted all my life from my youth. But now there is a difference; the initiative is entirely with God. It is indeed a profound spiritual experience to know and feel myself so totally in Godβs hands.
Nothing is confused except the mind.
wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for the sleepers in that quiet earth.
I should like to save the Shire, if I could - though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them. But I don't feel like that now. I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again.
Most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally evil, but by people being fundamentally people.