the bell jar (book report/ biography of author)

The Bell Jar

Suicidal in nature, perturbed in mind, and aimless in direction, Sylvia Plath fumbled her way through her adult life. The main character, Esther Greenwood, portrays Plath in her first and only book. Sylvia Plath conveys her touching story of losing herself, and her will to live, as well as her recovery in her heartbreaking novel, The Bell Jar.

Plath was not always such a disturbed person. She was born October 27th, 1932 (¡°Sylvia¡± n.p.). Her mother was a German and English teacher and her father emigrated from Germany at age sixteen to study ministry, and later, science. Sylvia was very close to her father, Otto Plath (Malmsheimer 527). In 1940, Otto, who had neglected to take care of his diabetes, fell ill and died that November. At this point in her life, Sylvia made a 180¢ª turn from being a happy, healthy child, to a shattered, lonesome soul (Malmsheimer 529).

Sylvia had little interaction with those outside of her household as a child. Her social circle included only her parents, maternal grandparents, her brother, and a few of her neighbors. She lived in the suburbs of Winthrop, Massachusetts near Boston and her father ran their household (Malmsheimer 528).

Sylvia¡¯s first publication was a short poem in the ¡°Boston Sunday Herald¡± at the tender age of eight years (Malmsheimer 529). In junior high school, Plath decided that she wanted to be a writer. She stuck with that idea for the whole of her brief life.

Plath graduated from Gamaliel Bradford High School in Wellesley, Massachusetts (Volkman 311). From there she went on to earn the Wellesley Smith Club Scholarship, the

Neilson Scholarship, and the Olive Higgins Prouty Fund Scholarship. In the fall of 1950, Plath enrolled in Smith College. Her first year there she was published in Seventeen Magazine and won the third place prize for their short story contest (Malmsheimer 530).

Ten years after Plath¡¯s award winning short story, her first collection of poems The Colossus and Other Poems, was published in 1960 (Malmsheimer 529). Plath attended Cambridge University in London, England. It was here that Plath met her husband, Ted Hughes, a fellow poet. They were married June 16th, 1956 and had a daughter, Frieda, and a son, Nicholas (Volkman 314). Sylvia later became aware of an affair her husband had been engaging in. This caused the couple to separate (Volkman 316).

The separation from Hughes caused Sylvia great distress. She had previously been hospitalized for attempting to take her own life (Volkman 312).