The role of second-person narration in representing mental states in Sylvia Plath's <i>Smith Journal</i>

Demjén, Zsófia

doi:10.1515/jlse.2011.001

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…But sleep is also a key symbol (Ortner, 1973) representing the complete lack of action and the passivity and seclusion that characterize depression. Similar themes commonly appear in autobiographies (Radden, 2008), private journals (Demjén, 2011), or interviews (Kangas, 2001; Karp, 1996). However, as opposed to these media, narratives in blogs offer something unique and very significant for people with depression—the ability to communicate with their readers.…”

Section: Findings and Analysismentioning

confidence: 76%

Depression Narratives in Blogs

Kotliar

2015

Qual Health Res

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People with depression often suffer from severe social seclusion, and the lack of an agreed upon etiology for depression makes it difficult to satisfactorily narrate and "ritually control" it. Focusing on blogs by women with major depression, I delineate the ways in which bloggers publicly express and collaboratively reconstruct their depression narratives. Specifically, using thematic analysis, I argue that depression blogs uniquely bridge between the seclusion that characterizes depression and the exposure offered in blogs, and thus offer people a rare opportunity to publicly share very intimate depression narratives, form communal bonds with their readers, and collaboratively revise their narratives. Depression blogs are also shown to function as "narrative sandboxes"-protected spaces in which bloggers can temporarily and experimentally add or remove different sections from their illness narratives, assess the compatibility of different cultural frameworks, and interchangeably use various metaphors, in an attempt to satisfactorily explain depression.

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Section: Findings and Analysismentioning

confidence: 76%

Depression Narratives in Blogs

Kotliar

2015

Qual Health Res

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“…This use of the second-person pronoun is partly generic, insofar as it has a collective referent, and partly specific, in that it does not refer to people in general but to the particular hospice team at the time (Demjén, 2011). The interviewee's use of 'you', as well as the general reflections before the specific narrative, therefore potentially suggest that anyone would have had the same difficulties if dealing with the particular patient (see Labov, 2013: 41, on the self as 'generalized other').…”

Section: A 'Bad' Death and Narratives Of Frustrated Interventionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While in 'good' death narratives the first-person plural pronoun 'we' tends to be used to refer to the agents of a successful intervention, here the second-person pronoun 'you' is used to refer to the hospice team (including the interviewee), whose intervention was ultimately unsuccessful. This use of the second-person pronoun is partly generic, insofar as it has a collective referent, and partly specific, in that it does not refer to people in general but to the particular hospice team at the time (Demjén, 2011). The interviewee's use of 'you', as well as the general reflections before the specific narrative, therefore potentially suggest that anyone would have had the same difficulties if dealing with the particular patient (see Labov, 2013: 41, on the self as 'generalized other').…”

Section: A 'Bad' Death and Narratives Of Frustrated Interventionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Good’ and ‘bad’ deaths: Narratives and professional identities in interviews with hospice managers

2014

Self Cite

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This article explores the formal and functional characteristics of narratives of 'good' and 'bad' deaths as they were told by 13 UK-based hospice managers in the course of semi-structured interviews. The interviewees' responses include a variety of remarkably consistent 'narratives of successful/frustrated intervention', which exhibit distinctive formal characteristics in terms of the starting point and core of the action, the choice of personal pronouns and metaphors, and the ways in which positive and negative evaluation is expressed. In functional terms, the hospice managers' narratives play an important role in representing and constructing their professional views, challenges and identities. Overall, the narratives argue for the role of hospices and professional hospice staff in facilitating a 'good' death, and, by presenting a relatively unified view, may potentially preclude alternative perspectives.

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“…In addition to books, plenty of creative research was to be found in the journals in 2011. One of the most interesting articles I read was Demjén's (2011) study of second person narration (SPN) in Sylvia Plath's journals. Demjén uses a mixed-method approach to investigate the stylistic impact of SPN, as well as attempting to determine the motivation for its use.…”

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confidence: 99%

The year’s work in stylistics 2011

McIntyre

2012

Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics

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At the heart of stylistics is creativity. Certainly most research in stylistics focuses on the analysis of creative work but it is also the case that stylistic analysis requires creative thought. Doing good stylistics means balancing the rigour of the linguist with the sensitivity of the literary critic. It involves shifting deictically between the minds of readers, writers, narrators and characters. And it can mean crossing disciplinary boundaries if that is what the analysis requires. A good place to start this year's review, then, is with Swann et al.'s (2011) edited volume, Creativity in Language and Literature: The State of the Art. This is a book that is certainly not bound by disciplinary conventions. This much is clear from Rob Pope's 'Prologue' (2011) which takes the form of something akin to free verse, using a creative form to make some erudite points about what creativity actually is. Following on from this, Pope and Swann's introduction (2011) outlines the remit of the book, which is to bring together a wide range of opinions about and attitudes to creativity, linked by a common concern with language. Thus, the chapter authors include linguists, literary critics, creative writers, storytellers and filmmakers. Some of the chapters are conventionally academic while others take the form of interviews, discussions of practical educational projects, reflective commentaries and creative writing. What you are likely to get out of the book depends very much on your disciplinary sensibilities. Hence, I appreciated Semino's (2011a) and Stockwell's (2011a) characteristically detailed analyses of, respectively, creative metaphors for pain and sympathy and empathy in literary reading. I was less convinced of the value of some of the less obviously academic contributions. For example, Wandor's (2011) discussion of her own creative processes is an entirely subjective account that raises only questions. This is true of many of the contributions from creative writers. And while it may well be interesting to hear about the creative process from writers themselves, as a linguist I find myself frustrated; not so much by the lack of answers, but by the seeming

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The role of second-person narration in representing mental states in Sylvia Plath's Smith Journal

Abstract: This paper looks at instances of second person narration in the first journal published inThe Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (Kukil, 2000)

Cited by 5 publications

References 8 publications

Depression Narratives in Blogs

Depression Narratives in Blogs

‘Good’ and ‘bad’ deaths: Narratives and professional identities in interviews with hospice managers

The year’s work in stylistics 2011

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