Sylvia Plath's Lady Lazarus and Stings

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Lady Lazarus and Stings

Sylvia Plath's works are known for their extremes. Much of the influence of her poems came from the males in her life that had the most effect on her; her father, Otto Plath and Ted Hughes, who she married and later it fell apart when Ted began having an affair. The effects of these men on her were mostly negative, making her poems to have loathing and suffering.

Otto Plath published a book about bees early in Sylvia's life, and he kept bees, which was an n activity later carried on by his daughter. Sylvia wrote a poem about bees called "Stings." Otto had a form of diabetes, and he refused any kind of medical treatment, therefor leading to his death. Sylvia followed his example and it is shown in "Tulips" and "Daddy". The fact that she devoted an entire poem to her father, and the hurt and pain that was caused by him, shows how intensely she felt about him.

"Her father's death left her not only with a hoard of unresolved grief, but it also left her defenseless against her mother's unintended vampirish harm. She...

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