Fever Bliss By Sylvia Plath Analysis

Joan D. Vinge once said, “We are all born with a unique genetic blueprint, which lays out the basic characteristics of our personality as well as our physical health and appearance... And yet, we all know that life experiences do change us.” In the short story, “Initiation,” by Sylvia Plath, Millicent, a teenage girl whom is being initiated into a high school sorority must go five days doing what their sorority big sister commands them to do. While being initiated, Millicent starts to realize that while being part of a group that she’s been longing to be apart of is great, being an individual and creating yourself makes you more unique than those who are part of a group. Having individuality allows you to be more free, and makes you more memorable to those around you.

Poems and songs may have strength in literary terms, but have you ever wondered what makes them powerful? In this essay, there will be analyzed two poems “The Boy Died in my Alley” and “Daddy”, as well as the song “Firework” in which theme, metaphor, and repetition are the literary devices that make them powerful.

In Initiation by Sylvia Plath, the author suggests that conformity and having friends is a wonderful idea, yet the idea of having an individual identity and being an individual is stronger. In the excerpt, Millicent is slowly realizing that conforming and being a part of a sorority is not as exciting as it sounds, and being an individual offers more opportunities to become a unique person.

America stands as the most prominent nation of liberty and freedom for all, yet some people still feel the reins of America’s oppressive past. Those include young African Americans and women, who feel that society places unequal expectations on them, simply based on their gender or race. Two young, American writers, Sylvia Plath and Langston Hughes especially feel this way through their works, Sylvia Plath at Seventeen and Theme for English B. Plath and Hughes employ tone, tone shift, and parallelism throughout their works to convey their message that young adults must stand up to demoralizing social expectations.

Mr. Cranton is the principal of Lansing High School who believes the girls’ sorority to be “undemocratic” which ultimately “disturb[s] the routine of school work” (241). He is a static, flat, and direct character.

In the short story “Initiation” by Sylvia Plath, Millicent Arnold is a narcissistic teenager undergoing her initiation into the most prestige social group at Lansing High. Despite being aware of the risk at losing her best friend, Tracy, Millicent eagerly seeks the opportunity to be part of a close-knit group and as a result, she is mistreated and forced to conform to the group’s narrow standards. Plath explains how being part of a social group does not necessarily help one grow individually, but rather assimilates them into what is portrayed as esteemed social status. As Millicent goes through the downgrading initiation process, she discovers the value of friendship and realizes that being associated with a certain group will not help her achieve confidence in her true self.

The author’s use of imagery also leaves the listeners crying at their misfortunes. To fully illustrate the burning, agony of Hell, the author frequently uses the phrases “glowing flames” and “Hell’s wide gaping mouth open”. This depict that Hell is very “hot” to endure

Poets, Judith Wright, Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickenson all express their views on life and death, however, do so in varying manners. Through imagery, Wright and Plath both consider life’s beginnings, however, Wright considers it to be a beautiful gift, whereas Plath views birth as an empty burden. Subsequently, through structure Dickenson and Wright each acknowledge life, expressing how in some cases it is difficult, yet in other circumstances it is celebrated. Finally, through tone, Dickenson and Plath convey their views on death, yet differ in that Plath believes it is purifying and holds a sick fascination with it, while Dickenson instead holds a unique curiosity about it. Therefore, whilst each poet recognises the journey of birth,

It tends to be the trend for women who have had traumatic childhoods to be attracted to men who epitomize their emptiness felt as children. Women who have had unaffectionate or absent fathers, adulterous husbands or boyfriends, or relatives who molested them seem to become involved in relationships with men who, instead of being the opposite of the “monsters” in their lives, are the exact replicas of these ugly men. Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy” is a perfect example of this unfortunate trend. In this poem, she speaks directly to her dead father and her husband who has been cheating on her, as the poem so indicates.

Sylvia Plath was a troubled writer to say the least, not only did she endure the loss of her father a young age but she later on “attempted suicide at her home and was hospitalized, where she underwent psychiatric treatment” for her depression (Dunn). Writing primarily as a poet, she only ever wrote a single novel, The Bell Jar. This fictional autobiography “[chronicles] the circumstances of her mental collapse and subsequent suicide attempt” but from the viewpoint of the fictional protagonist, Esther Greenwood, who suffers the same loss and challenges as Plath (Allen 890). Due to the novel’s strong resemblance to Plath’s own history it was published under the pseudonym “Victoria Lucas”. In The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath expresses the

In addition to mirroring life, the Sea of Flames sets the stage for Doerr’s most pervasive yet inconspicuous analogy. When asked what he wants readers to take away from his novel, Doerr replies “that war is more complicated than they [the readers] might have thought, that there were civilians on both sides making really complicated moral decisions, [...] [that] little miracles” sprouted in the least expected of places (Schulman 27). The Sea of Flames is a central messenger for this theme at individual points of the novel but also in its overarching structure. The reader is first introduced to the Sea of Flames when it is housed at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, marked only by “an iron door with a single keyhole,” a series ending with a “thirteenth [...] no bigger than a shoe.” (Doerr 19-20). All the Light We Cannot See is partitioned into fourteen fragments- but it is labeled zero through thirteen. Just as passing through each door brings one closer to the gem, Doerr seeks to guide his reader through the locked gates of compassion and conflict to arrive at his own gem, which is revealed after passing through the thirteenth gate, into the last chapter of the novel, as Marie-Laure contemplates all the invisible electromagnetic waves, “ten thousand I miss yous, fifty thousand I love yous” passing “over the scarred and ever-shifting landscapes.” Transient messages connecting ephemeral people who eventually fall away, like the Sea of Flames, and “rise again

In 1963 on a cold winter day of February 11th, Sylvia Plath ended her life. She had plugged up her kitchen, sealing up the cracks in doors and windows before she was found with her head inside of her gas oven inhaling the dangerous fumes. She was only thirty years old, a young woman with two small children and an estranged ex-husband. A tragic detail of her life is that this is the second time she had tried to commit suicide. Plagued with mental illness her whole life, which is evident within her poetry. She would write gripping, honest portrayals of mental illnesses. Especially within Ariel, the last poetry book she wrote, right before she took her life. Although it’s hard to find a proper diagnosis for Sylvia Plath, it is almost definite that she at least had clinical depression with her numerous suicide attempts and stays in mental hospitals undergoing electroshock therapy. Sylvia Plath is now famously known for her writing and the more tragic parts of her life. Such as the separation from her husband, Ted Hughes, mental illness, etc… Plath may not have intended for her life and art to become inspiration to many people but that has become the end result. Sylvia Plath writing shows symptoms of her suicidal thoughts. To study specific moments in Sylvia Plath’s life, it can be connected to certain writing’s of her’s, such as “Daddy”, The Bell Jar, and “Lady Lazarus”.

Sylvia Plath wrote “Mad Girl’s Love Song” in the early fifties while she was an undergraduate college student. The poem is written in the villanelle poetic form of which it reflects not only the rigorous fixed format, nineteen-line with two repeating rhymes and two refrains but also the melancholic tone and rhythm of the traditional dance song—in vogue in Italy and France during the sixteenth century—in which its roots lie. The title itself offers a plausible explanation for choosing the villanelle poetic form, which strict metric certainly helps to convey the sense of torment and alienation that emerges from the refrains repeated throughout the poem. A rising crescendo from one stanza to the next builds

Wrapped in gaseous mystique, Sylvia Plath’s poetry has haunted enthusiastic readers since immediately after her death in February, 1963. Like her eyes, her words are sharp, apt tools which brand her message on the brains and hearts of her readers. With each reading, she initiates them forever into the shrouded, vestal clan of her own mind. How is the reader to interpret those singeing, singing words? Her work may be read as a lone monument, with no ties to the world she left behind. But in doing so, the reader merely grazes the surface of her rich poetics. Her poetry is largely autobiographical, particularly Ariel and The Bell Jar, and it is from this frame of mind that the reader interprets the work as a

Some of the dark negative emotions Sylvia Plath shares in this poem can make anyone have sympathy on her feelings. Especially, when she writes,