Great Women, Daughters of Depression

It seems that strokes of genius come at a great price for some of the greatest women ever lived. They were the most compelling artists, actresses, singers, writers etc...producing the most intense works and showcasing the most stunning performances on stage, but below the brilliance of achievements laid very tormented, anguished souls.

I am intrigued by these women, who, at the nadir of their pyschological states, channeled the tempestous, raging internal energy into very powerful and disturbing works. These works are stark and lurid in details, brandishing the bare nakedness of emotions and leave haunting, indelible impressions for first-time readers/audience.

One of such women is Sylvia Plath, a poet/author who gassed herself to death at the age of 30, and right before she died, produced the most vehement, emotion-stirring poems. Apparently she longed for her father who passed away when she was only eight, and she hated him at the same time for not staying there longer for her , so in the poem Daddy, she portrayed her love and hate for her father intertwinedly, liking him as the Nazi soldier while she being a Jew. In a bid to fill up the void that her father left her, she married Ted Hughes , who like her father, made a premature exit out of her life by straying. Sylvia Plath expressed her ironic concoction of intense love and hate for these two men in her life, and having enough of them, she ended her poem with: “Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.”

Another woman who fascinates me is Frida Kahlo, a Mexican artist who had a tumultuous life as well. Born with polio and encountered with a serious accident when she was 18, Frida Kahlo was bogged down by sporadic relapses of pain and fatigue through out her next 29 years which caused her to be bedridden and suffer endlessly. In her paintings she unleashed her stormy emotions using vivid colours and sometimes painting morbid subject matter; she did many self-portraits , most of them depicting herself as a inimical icy figure with frozen, unsmiling expressions. She died at 47, suicide was rumoured, for the last words in her diary read: “ I hope the leaving is joyful and I hope never to return.” Below is an excerpt from an online article about how Frida Kahlo shocked her mourners and fans when she was about to be cremated:

“Mourners gathered on July 13, 1954 to watch the cremation of the world's greatest and most shocking painter. Soon to be an international icon, Frida Kahlo knew how to give her fans one last frightening goodbye. As the cries of her admirers filled the room, the sudden blast of heat from the open incinerator doors blew her body bolt upright. Her hair, now on fire from the flames, blazed around her head like a halo. Frida's lips appeared to break into a seductive grin just as the doors closed shut. Her last diary entry read "I hope the leaving is joyful and I hope never to return". Frida was only 47 on the day she died. Her amazing, and many times bloody self-portrait paintings will live forever.”

I used to listen to The Carpenters’ songs since young, and now even, Dad sometimes play it in his car. Karen Carpenter’s voice echoes in the car like gentle, soothing breeze; her voice is truly unique, belonging to the alto range, with strong, supple sustenance and control, that nourishes the soul as one listens to it. Despite Karen’s vivacious exterior, she has long suffered from anorexia nervosa, which cost her her life in 1983, at the age of 33. Anorexia nervosa, as now has become a common term ,is an eating disorder suffered by females in general, who are in a constant psychological disturbance that they are fat and ugly and hence develop reflex rejection for food. Karen Carpenter, pressurized by the social pressures and the need to look good as a performer, succumbed to this disease, which is in fact a psychological illness more than just an eating disorder, and died at the peak of her career.

These three women, all of them suffered from unstable psychological conditions and erratic emotions, and these manic emotions in a way sparked off unprecedented surge of creativity that made them geniuses in their own rights. And u start to realize, sometimes it requires a little detour in the head to become a genius.