Dismantling Mental Health Stigma: Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis

Abstract

The central theme in The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane is the experience of living with a mental illness and the suffering that it can bring to one’s life. In these two texts the writers openly talk about their pain and their thoughts, which are undoubtedly affected by their diseases, but still depend on their personal way of dealing with them. In this thesis, expressions of mental illnesses in Sylvia Plath and Sarah Kane will be discussed in connection to the long-existing mental health stigma which does not see patients as people with a problem, but as dangerous, attention-drawing individuals or mockery objects. The focal point of this analysis is to show how, in their texts, mentally ill people are depicted as people who are suffering, dismantling these prejudices that deprive them of their humanity and individuality. The theme is also relevant in particular for women, who are often victims of the patriarchal society that sets stricter rule for them to follow in order to fit. This thesis is going to highlight the way Plath and Kane treat these topics differently from the dominant social and mental prejudices and to examine, therefore, how they managed to represent a different conception of mental illness regarding women in particular, but also all people in general, in their texts.