Contrariwise: Literary Tattoos » Sylvia Plath

Fig Tree

Jen — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:00:37 +0000

This is Katie C.‘s tattoo:

The reason I got it was because I can really relate to having many paths in my life I might take, and I want to remind myself that if I wait around for the perfect, right one, eventually all my choices will be gone.

“…I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 7

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by a mad miracle

Jen — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:00:02 +0000

This is Vincent’s tattoo.

By a mad miracle I go intact
Among the common rout
Thronging sidewalk, street,
And bickering shops;
Nobody blinks a lid, gapes,
Or cries that this raw flesh
Reeks of the butcher’s cleaver,
Its heart and guts hung hooked
And bloodied as a cow’s split frame
Parceled out by white-jacketed assassins.

- Excerpt from “Street Song” by Sylvia Plath.

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Tulips

Jen — Thu, 21 May 2009 16:00:34 +0000

This tattoo belongs to Dese’Rae Stage (see her other tattoo), and was done by Ryan Falcon at Almost Famous Tattoo in Miami, FL.

3 lines from the poem “Tulips” by Sylvia Plath:

And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.

I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.

And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself.

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Sylvia Plath Shoes

Jen — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 21:00:25 +0000

This tattoo was submitted by Allison, who says:

The tattoo is a drawing of a pair of shoes by Sylvia Plath. It is part of a small collection of her drawings that appears in the back of some paperback editions of “The Bell Jar”.

I’ve had the same copy of the book since high school and always keep it near me.

Drawing from The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

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Sylvia Plath

Jen — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:00:54 +0000

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart: I am, I am, I am.”

- The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

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The Bell Jar

Jen — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:00:03 +0000

From The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

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Sylvia Plath

Jen — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 16:00:34 +0000

“I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.”

- Sylvia Plath, The Journals of Sylvia Plath

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Sylvia Plath & Christopher Marlowe

Jen — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:00:26 +0000

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart: I am, I am, I am.”

- The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

“Consummatum est: this bill is ended,
And Faustus hath bequeathed his soul to Lucifer.
But what is this inscription on mine arm?
Homo fuge! Whither should I fly?
If unto God, he’ll throw me down to hell.
My senses are deceived; here’s nothing writ:
I see it plain, here in this place is writ,
Homo fuge! Yet shall not Faustus fly.”

- Faustus in The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe

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