Sylvia Plath was a typical example of her generation, inpatient and greedy for life but this description has a bit different meaning. Plath indeed desired artistic fulfilment but she wanted to be an ideal wife and mother at the same time. When Ted Hughes published his first poetry volume "The Hawk in the Rain" she was very happy that she will follow his footsteps.
Throughout their marriage she was in the shadow of her husband and we can argue whether it was her conscious choice and to what extend it was the result of her times.
During the fifties woman who did not feel that her life as a housewife could be satisfactory and fulfilling was considered strange. At the end of the fifties the average age of marriage had actually fallen to 20. It was usual for girls to quit colleges or high schools and get married.
Furthermore, education was treated as a bar to marriage. During the decade housewifery tasks were glorified as a "proof of a complete woman." Becoming good wife was the dream of all young women. Such stereotype was shown everywhere on TV, in advertising and in the movies. There were loving couples, embracing under the trees of the new suburban house with 3 or 4 children in the playground. That was the picture of the happy family of the 50's.
Those were the times when Sylvia Plath was entering her adulthood as a woman. According to Janet Malcolm, the author of "The Silent Woman. Sylvia Palth and Ted Hughes" Plath is a pattern picture of hypocritical times of the 50's. Under her happy face mask she hides the second one, paralysed with fear and uncertainty. She grew up in the spirit of the programmed positive 50's, believing that her marriage will be like a diamond, everlasting. Ted was supposed to be a man for th...
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...d she remained a great, tender and caring mother, although life-dream of a happy family did not come true.
The whole life she tried to act her roles perfectly and she managed to, at least she did her best. Plath identified with the values that feminists reject: being loving wife, good mother, which together with writing, were her fulfilment and happiness.
Works Cited
Malcolm, Janet ."The Silent Woman. Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes." [www.questia.com] New York: A. A. Knopf, 1994
Meyering, Sheryl L., ed. Sylvia Plath: A Reference Guide 1973-1988. Boston:G.K.Hall&Company, 1990
Plath, Sylvia. The Collected Poems. Ed. Ted Hughes. New York: Harper&Row,1981
Plath, Sylvia. The Journals of Sylvia Plath. Ed. Ted Hughes and Frances McCullough. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982.
Wagner, Linda W.,ed. Critical Essays on Sylvia Plath. Boston: G.K. Hall&Company, 1984
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Sylvia Plath a highly acclaimed twentieth century American poet whose writings were mostly influenced by her life experiences. Her father died shortly after her eighth birthday and her first documented attempt at suicide was in her early twenties. She was married at age twenty-three and when she discovered her husband was having an affair she left him with their two children. Her depression and the abandonment she felt as a child and as a woman is what inspires most of her works. Daddy is a major decision point where Plath decides to overcome her father’s death by telling him she will no longer allow his memory to control her.
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.
The women of the 1950s struggled to fit into the mold that the American culture wanted them to be in. Women were meant to be the caretakers of the family and were expected to do whatever it would take to make sure that everything was perfect for their husbands. In a magazine article from Housekeeping Monthly that came out in 1955, there are a list of things that a woman must strive to do in order to be the ideal wife. This includes things such
"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 ...
As England’s Poet Laureate, and recipient of both the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and T.S. Eliot’s prize for poetry, Ted Hughes was an acclaimed poet. The shadow of Hughes late wife, Sylvia Plath, kept Hughes stagnant in his career, in which he was known as “Her Husband” (Middlebrook). Hughes most recent collection of poems, Birthday Letters, took him over twenty-five years to write, and contains poems which recount the marriage of the couple. Hughes wrote the poems as a loving gesture towards Sylvia, but the poems were misinterpreted as “an attempt to adjust the public record in the wake of her confession and the mass of commentary which has grown up around them” (Spurr 3). Hughes incorporated into his poetry the ideals of postmodernism, his somber life and relationships, simplistic formatting, imagery, and allusions. Hughes influenced the world through his animal images and multifarious tones.
Plath’s father died early in her life leaving her with unresolved feelings, and this brought a lot of troubles later on in life. Sylvia was a great student but when she was overwhelmed with disappointments after a month in New York, she attempted suicide (“Sylvia Plath”). After receiving treatment and recovering, she returned to school and later moved to England where she met her future husband, Ted Hughes (“Sylvia Plath”). Their marriage with two children didn’t last when Ted had an affair. They separated and Ted moved in with the new woman, leaving Sylvia and their two children. Battling depression during this time, Sylvia soon ended her life. She left behind numerous writings that many might see as signs of her depression and suicide attempts.