Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar
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.
There are so many things to do, aren't there? And yet, they are not real things, they are not concrete, and so I cannot imagine how I might do them. What do the paths look like? I keep telling myself that they must be gold or indigo or clay red, but maybe this is just another way of being blind. I wonder if, in fact, they are going past all the time and I am ignoring them because I lack imagination, because I am afraid of being the first one to go.
People never look anyone in the eye here and never smile at strangers. I want to go home but home is so sad.
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.
There are so many things to do, aren't there? And yet, they are not real things, they are not concrete, and so I cannot imagine how I might do them. What do the paths look like? I keep telling myself that they must be gold or indigo or clay red, but maybe this is just another way of being blind. I wonder if, in fact, they are going past all the time and I am ignoring them because I lack imagination, because I am afraid of being the first one to go.
People never look anyone in the eye here and never smile at strangers. I want to go home but home is so sad.