Sylvia Plath may be one of the most remarkable and idolized modern poets of the twentieth century. Sylvia Plath had an emotional life, and a troublesome past with her father's death, insecurities because of self-doubt, a tragic break up with her husband and severe depression, leading to her suicide in 1963. These tragic events in Plath’s life played a vast part in her career as a poet and novelist, by inspiring her to create her melancholy and notorious masterpieces.
Born on October 27, 1932, in Boston, Massachusetts, Sylvia Plath was the daughter of Otto and Aurelia Plath. Growing up during the Great Depression, the family lived under Mr. Plath's care until he became sick with diabetes, dying shortly after Sylvia's eighth birthday. In spite of her father's death, Plath's childhood seemed to have been relatively mere (Austin). It is said that, “Sylvia conformed to the notion of the model child--excelling in school and whatever intellectual activities interested her, being docile and responsive to her family's wishes, and aiming steadily for honors and success in the American tradition of the 1950s” (Wanger). However, beneath the surface of her seeming perfection laid some grave troublesome problems, brought on by the death of her father. To rid some of the stress because of the recent death in the Plath’s life, Aurelia moved the family to Wellesley, Massachusetts. Aurelia enrolled Sylvia in a new school, feeling that studying and being with children Sylvia’s age would console her (Alexander 21). On the contrary it is said that, “Sylvia was still confused and angry about her father’s death…Her strong and conflicting emotions of love, hate, anger and grief at the loss of her father were to affect Sylvia for the rest of her life” (A...
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... A Biography of Sylvia Plath. New York, NY, U.S.A.: Viking, 1991. Print.
Plath, Sylvia, and Karen V. Kukil. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950-1962. New York: Anchor, 2000. Print.
Austin, David Craig. "Sylvia Plath." Modern American Women Writers. Ed. Elaine Showalter, Lea Baechler, and A. Walton Litz. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1991. Scribner Writers Series. Web. 25 Apr. 2014.
Wanger-Martin, Linda. "Plath, Sylvia (1932-1963)." Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature. George B. Perkins, Barbara Perkins, and Phillip Leininger. Vol. 1. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. 850. Literature Resource Center. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
Middlebrook, Diane Wood. Her Husband: Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath--a Marriage. New York: Penguin, 2004. Print.
Freedman, William (1993): “The Monster in Plath’s ‘Mirror.’” Papers on Language and Literature, 108.5: 152-69.
Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print.
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The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "Sylvia Plath (American author)." 23 September 2013. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 9 April 2014 .
During a time when women didn't have many rights or received much recognition, Sylvia Plath was born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts on Oct. 27, 1932 (Rosenberg 10). Her parents would've never expected their daughter would one day become such a success in a male-dominated profession of writing. At an early age, her writing career started to kick off, as well as the start of many dark events that would become the inspiration for her writings. When I first read "Blackberrying" by Plath, I simply thought that it was a simple story about going to pick blackberries only to then get distracted by the lure of the sea. But after reading it a few more times, I started to pick up on the subtleties that lay within the poem.
The highly recognized female novelist and poet, Sylvia Plath, lived a hard and tragic life. Plath was diagnosed with depression, a mood disorder that causes consistent feelings of sadness, at a very young age that made her life complicated in many ways. The battle continued on when she was diagnosed with severe depression later on in life which contributed to her death. Sylvia Plath was a very successful novelist and poet in the thirty short years of her life, however, the achievements were not enough to mask her depression battle that ran and ended her life.
"About." Personal Blog, n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2015. [When finding an explanation for the similarities between the writers, it is important to play close attention to biographies. In case the psychoeconomic factors that Ruonco describes are true, then biography constitutes most of the development of the Sylvia Plath affliction. Moreover, the biography provides an insight into the views of the author for a better and more accurate understanding of her poetry. Furthermore, it is imperative to use her auto-statement since she referres to her "muse" as something out of her control which can be traced to Kaufman's
Sylvia Plath’s life was full of disappointment, gloominess and resentment. Her relationship status with her parents was hostile and spiteful, especially with her father. Growing up during World War II did not help the mood of the nation either, which was dark and dreary. At age 8 Plath’s father of German ancestry died of diabetes and even though their relationship was never established nor secure, his death took a toll on her. “For Sylvia, who had been his favorite, it was an emotional holocaust and an experience from which she never fully recovered” (Kehoe 90). Since she was so young she never got to work out her unsettled feelings with him. Even at age eight, she hid when he was around because she was fearful of him. When she was in his presence his strict and authoritarian figure had left an overpowering barrier between their relationship. Sadly enough by age eight Plath instead of making memories with her dad playing in the yard she resented him and wanted nothing to do with him (Kehoe). These deep-seated feelings played a major role in Plath’s poetry writings. Along with his “hilterian figure,” her father’s attitude towards women was egotistical and dismissive, uncondemning. This behavior infuriated Plath; she was enraged about the double standard behavior towards women. Plath felt controlled in male-dominated world (Lant). “Because Plath associates power so exclusively with men, her conviction that femininity is suffocating and inhibiting comes as no surprise” (Lant 631). This idea of a male-dominated world also influenced Plath’s writing. Unfortunately, Plath married a man just like her father Ted Hughes. “Hughes abandonment apparently stirred in her the memories and feelings she had struggled with when her ...
Born in Boston on October 27, 1932 to Otto and Aurelia Plath, Sylvia had a pleasant start in life. She grew up in Winthrop, a seaside town outside of Boston, with her younger brother, Warren. When she was eight years old, her father died as a result of pulmonary embolism following an injury complicated by diabetes. His death had such an impact on her that she eventually became obsessed with dying and wrote many pieces on the subject. In her works, he became a Nazi, a devil, and a demon lover, calling her to the grave. In school, Sylvia proved to be an outstanding writer, winning numerous awards. In 1950, entering college, her first short story, "And Summer Will Not Come Again" was published in Seventeen magazine. She attended Smith College with a double scholarship from Wellesly Smith Club and a private fund endowed by Olive Higgins Prouty. In 1952 she won a guest editorship in Mademoiselle's College Board Co...
Giles, Richard F. “Sylvia Plath.” Magill’s Critical Survey of Poetry. Ed. Frank N. Magill, b. 1875. Pasadena: Salem Press, 1992.
Plath, Sylvia. “Mad Girl’s Love Song.” Perrine’s Literature Structure, Sound & Sense. Ed. Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson. 11th ed. Wadsworth Cengage Learning 2012. 1003-1004. Print.
Sylvia Plath reflects her pain and suffering from depression in her life in the novel The Bell Jar, and Plath reveals her depression in her two poems, “Mirror” and “Daddy.” Plath had a weakness that was easy to spot but hard to control, “If Plath is to be faulted, this quality is perhaps her greatest weakness: she was not able to project her personae a great distance from herself. Plath was aware of this limitation. She once wrote: ‘I shall perish if I can write about no one but myself’”(Giles). She knew all of her literature was about her personal experiences, most of her writing is very dark and shows the world from a different point of view that not many people have. Plath commonly wrote about death, corpses, the moon, fetuses, and the sea. In “Mirror,” she wrote about hiding her inner self from the rest of the world, while in “Daddy,” she wrote about her selfish father, dying and leaving her to be alone. While critics such as Jeannine Johnson call her only novel, The Bell Jar an obvious “autobiography.”
Sylvia Plath, born in October 1932, went through a great amount of depression which never receded due to her father’s death in 1940. She unsuccessfully attempted suicide at the ages of 10 and 20. However, in 1954 things seemed hopeful, with Plath obtaining a scholarship to Harvard summer school, then in 1955 with her graduation from Smith College and her attendance to Cambridge University on Fulbright fellowship. On the 16th of June in 1956 Plath was married to Ted Hughes, who was also a poet.
The Troubled Consciousness of Sylvia Plath as seen in “The Arrival of the Bee Box”
Sylvia Plath." Contemporary Literature Fall 1996: 370-90. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter and Deborah A. Schmitt. Vol. 111. Detroit: Gale Group, 1999. Literature Resource Center. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
Through her dark and intense poetry, Sylvia Plath left an eternal mark on the literary community. Her personal struggles with depression, insecurities, and suicidal thoughts influenced her poetry and literary works. As a respected twentieth century writer, Sylvia Plath incorporated various literary techniques to intensify her writing. Her use of personification, metaphors, and allusions in her poems “Ariel,” “Lady Lazarus,” and “Edge”, exemplifies her talent as a poet and the influence her own troubled life had on her poetry. According to “Sylvia Plath” Sylvia Plath struggled with severe depression throughout her life.