I forgot to add this - Randall, you are an insufferable idiot if your comments are not tongue in cheek.

Tamara - Sorry, I know this is morbid, but Plath did, in fact, put her head literally into the oven. She sealed the kitchen with towels and tape after leaving bread and milk for her children (and opening the window in their bedroom). She folded a kitchen towel, placed on the opened oven door and laid her head on it. We know this because of the testimony of those who found her (there was an inquest, which Ted Hughes attended, wherein her death was ruled a suicide). It was her doctor's belief that the anti depressants he had prescribed for her ironically contributed to her suicide,as the type of drug (mono oxidase inhibitor) can make a person more active but still feeling depressed, at the beginning of the treatment. What's striking for me personally, is that writers like Plath can write when depressed, that they are able to produce work. Anyone who has ever been depressed knows how difficult this must be. Plath wrote despite being depressed, not necessarily because of her depression.