@article{ref1, title="Sylvia Plath: a protocol analysis of her last poems", journal="Death studies", year="1998", author="Leenaars, A. A. and Wenckstern, Susanne", volume="22", number="7", pages="615-635", abstract="Personal documents have a significant place in psychological research. Suicide notes, diaries, novels, poems, and so on allow us to better understand the suicidal mind. The works of Sylvia Plath--a poet who killed herself at age 30--are prime examples for such protocol study. This article examines the last 6 months of Plath's poetry, revealing a suicidal malaise. Associating the results to the lives of Cesare Pavese and the case study of Natalie, a Terman-Shneidman subject of the intellectually gifted, the study shows a unit thema that facilitates the process of death. The poems reveal such themes as unbearable pain, loss, and abandonment that likely contributed significantly to death becoming the only solution.

Language: en

", language="en", issn="0748-1187", doi="10.1080/074811898201326", url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/074811898201326" }