How Did Sylvia Plath Committed Suicide

Sylvia Plath’s poor mental health, which subsequently lead to her suicide on February 11th 1963, may be seen to be reflected in her novel, ‘The Bell Jar’. Death may be deemed to have a lack of meaning throughout her novel due to the casual manner in which the protagonist and narrator, Esther Greenwood, deals with death. Esther’s father passed away when she was nine years old, and she feels that his death marked the point at which she changed, resulting in her mental health becoming unstable. However, along with her mother, she ‘had never cried for [her] father’s death’ (p.159). This clearly demonstrates how Esther deals with death; it is a necessary part of life, and to Esther, as aforementioned, her mental health has caused her to view death as more desirable than ‘sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in [her] own sour air’ (p. 178). Moreover, Esther’s numerous attempts at suicide remind the reader that Esther believes the only ‘way out’ is death. For example, in Chapter Thirteen, Esther asks her friend Cal, how he would kill

Sylvia Plath is an American poet, novelist and short story writer who lived in London, United Kingdom. She is considered an important poet of her generation. Her work is very personal and towards the end of her life she often wrote about death. She usually used confessional genre to write her poetry. She is Best-known for her two published collections: The Colossus and Other Poetrys and Ariel. She also wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar in 1963 published shortly before her death. The Bell Jar was based on her own life and personal experiences. The Thin People is one of her best poetry which was written in 1957 and was also known as "The Moon Was a Fat Woman Once". A lot of interpretations were made toward this poetry. Some

"To annihilate the world by annihilation of one's self is the deluded height of desperate egoism. The simple way out of all the little brick dead ends we scratch our nails against.... I want to kill myself, to escape from responsibility, to crawl back abjectly into the womb." (Plath 60)

After the affair Plath grew increasingly depressed and eventually committed suicide. He said that “Plaths death was inevitable, she had been on that track most of her life,” but he could not contend with the additional suicide of Wevill in 1969, which he said was “utterly within her power, and it was an outcome of her reaction to Sylvia’s action,” which led to Wevill’s suicide.” These past horrific experiences strongly affected Hughes future relationships and poetry.

Sylvia Plath was an American author and poet. Her death at the age of 30 by suicide was the end of her long struggle with mental illness throughout her life, chronicled in her most famous work, her fictional, but inspired by her life novel, The Bell Jar, cited for its feminist themes and exploration of mental illness. Plath is considered one of the greatest poets and novelists of the 20th century, whose works were influenced by her mental illnesses, and still have relevance today.

Most of the time poems are written to have a deeper meaning rather than only having a literal meaning which allows the writer to tell an idea or reveal deeper emotions they have. Several poems written by Sylvia Plath were written with a deeper meaning as a way to admit her profound emotions. Throughout Plath's life she suffered from severe depression which in turn impacted many of her poems. Her husband, Ted Hughes, was also having an affair with another woman which worsened her depression. A year later Plath's depression got the best of her and she committed suicide in 1963. Her poem "Cut" was written close to her death and thus contains her pain and deep emotions. Within "Cut" Plath details the experience of cutting her thumb, she compares the pain she felt to the pain she has had throughout her life and the pain people suffered from during events

While most may know her as the first woman to win the first Nobel Prize for Poetry (“Sara Teasdale”, Short Stories and Classic Literature), many do not realize the impact of her background on her style of work and the many themes she decided to write about. Born in St. Louis on August 8, 1994, Sara Trevor Teasdale was born into a traditional and devout family (“Sara Teasdale”, Poets.org). Her childhood was spent at home, due to her always being ill, but she started school at the age of nine, eventually publishing poems in her local newspaper and her first collection, becoming more involved as she went to Chicago and immersing herself in the crowd surrounding Poetry magazine (“Sara Teasdale”, Short Stories and Classic Literature; “Sara Teasdale”,

It is said that without melancholy there is no art, and there is no better embodiment of that than beloved poet and author, Sylvia Plath. Often referred to as one of the most dynamic poets of the 1900’s, Plath had no limits on her expression through poetry. Her poems ranged from flowing verses on nature to unconventional commentary on the social restrictions placed on individuals. She is most known for her poetic expression of her own mental anguish, never shying away from topics of death and despair.

Elizabeth Winder’s Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 illuminates different aspects of Sylvia Plath’s life. However, Winder depicts Plath not as the mythologized martyr of a collapsed marriage or the tragic woman poet with a debilitating illness but rather as a young girl wanting to immerse herself in the rich, material culture of her time. Winder’s biography gives insight to the life of an intelligent young woman amidst the gender constraints of mid-century America, a theme that is further explicated in Plath’s novel, The Bell Jar.

In 1935, when Plath was three, she welcomed a baby brother, Warren. Shortly after, Plath's little brother was born the family moved to Winthrop, Massachusetts (thefamouspeople). Sadly when Plath was eight, her father died from complication of diabetes(Poets). After her father's death she lost her faith in God and remained irresolute about her religion. During this time, she wrote the poem "Electra on Azalea Plath", which was inspired by visits to her father's grave(Thefamouspeople). Plath continued to make more poetry and earned a scholarship to Smith College in 1950. However, Plath's junior year in college, she made her first suicide attempt by overdosing on sleeping pills. After six month of intense shock therapy, Plath returned to Smith College and later earned a Fulbright Scholarshp to Newhnham College in Cambridge.(Wagner-Martin 1). While at Cambridge, Plath met another poet who she fell

Sylvia Plath uses a lot of allusions in her poem “Lady Lazarus” to add a deep and ghostly meaning to the words that she uses. These biblical and historical allusions also add an extremely angry tone of voice. Ultimately, these biblical and historical allusions show her message that almost dying is an event she likes to be a part of. For example, Plath uses a historical allusion to the holocaust in the beginning of the poem. The reference to the holocaust and other things create the main tone of death.

Sylvia Plath was a very dedicated author who lived from 1932-1963. She is best known for her poetry. Plath started writing and was a published poet at a very young age. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Plath’s first poem was published when she was eight years old. “Plath’s poems explore her own mental anguish, her troubled marriage to fellow poet Ted Hughes, her unresolved conflicts with her parents, and her own vision of herself”(Poetry Foundation). Plath was a devoted English student in high school. She performed so well in English that she was awarded a merit scholarship for Smith College where, eventually, she went on to pursue a degree in English. She was often referred to as “The Golden Girl” by her professors and her peers. It is also a well-known fact that she struggled immensely with depression. Some setbacks with her mental health forced her to take a break from college and graduate a year late. She eventually graduated from Smith College with highest honors in English. She took time off of school because she suffered from a mental breakdown. She had disappeared for a few days and was found close to death. She had attempted suicide and was hospitalized immediately. Several years and many attempts later, Plath was successful in taking her own life at the young age of 30. Plath’s constant struggle with depression showed up in her poems time and time again. Her writing very clearly reflected off of her life. Sylvia Plath lived a life

Sylvia Plath, your life was not anything but hard, battling your depression many times. Your first suicide attempt, you were gone for days, your family scared on where you went; little did they know you right under their feet. You were found in the cellar of your home, dazed and covered in your own vomit. Your mother, Aurelia Plath, sent you to a mental institution. There, for the second time you had electroconvulsive therapy, the first being to try and cure your insomnia, your insomnia was the cause of stress, the stress of being a failure to everyone around you.

“I have done it again.” Once every ten years, Sylvia feels compelled to commit this nameless act, which refers to her suicide attempts. After 2 failed attempts of suicide in the past 2 decades (one being an accident and the other one being on purpose), she shows some sort of excitement for this third attempt, referring to it as an art she seems to excel at. Now she is fully recovered, which she seems to think of as a failure, and her suicide attempts to her are her big accomplishments. Plath is ready to add another “accomplishment” to her list after 10 long awaited years, now that her flesh has returned to her bones. She is ready to reach the perfection of the art that is suicide, she is ready to abandon her body once more, hoping not to resurrect like Lazarus once more.

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