Sylvia Plath Biography

Sylvia Plath accomplished great literary achievements throughout her career. As a student and poet, she excelled. Despite this, some may believe that her success and fame only came from the fact that she killed herself and was mad, which is not necessarily the case. If it was only because of her suicide, the novel wouldn’t be acknowledged in as many school curriculums as it is. We can see that in her earlier life, Plath was recognized as a gifted poet much before her struggle with depression. Such as, earning herself a scholarship at a great college and eventually going on to be a guest editor for a magazine in New York. She was able to make so many great opportunities for herself which proves that some of her fame isn’t just about her personal background. Part of her readers are attracted to her works, especially The Bell

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

Sylvia was born in Boston on 27th October 1932. She has grown up in a family environment which supports self-improvement and literal works. Sylvia’s father, Otto was a dominant presence in the house. He died when she was eight years old because of pulmonary embolism after an amputation surgery. After Otto’s death Aurelia worked too much to ensure a good living for her children. They moved from one place to another for many times. This situation caused an unstable family life for both children. Sylvia’s first published poem was published after her father’s death. She was a motivated and successful student at school. She earned a scholarship from Smith College in 1950 and continued to read

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 was an American Poet who was renowned for poetry mostly in the United States. She, however lived a difficult and depressing life which led to a few futile suicide attempts, but ultimately led to a successful suicide attempt leaving her children to live on without a mother. This end result was due to a multitude of issues in her life from Sylvia’s sanity. She wasn’t the most stable child. Her marriage also played a role in her suicide. Her successes weren’t acclaimed until after her death, when a majority of her work was released. There were two major aspects to her life: her poetry and her sanity. These three combined make up a majority of Sylvia’s life.

Sylvia Plath is said to be one the most prodigious, yet interesting, confessional poets of her time. She was an extremely vital poet of the post-World War II time period and expressed her feelings towards her father and husband through her poetry. Plath’s mental illness had a dramatic influence upon her work in which she demonstrated the hatred she had for her father specifically. The poem “Daddy” is an easily applicable example. Within this piece of work, Plath uses direct references to how she feels towards her father who was the greatest influence on her poetry. The bond, or lack of, between Sylvia Plath and her “Daddy” is commonly associated with the purpose of her poetry. Her father died when Plath was only ten years old and

Sylvia Plath attended smith college in Massachusetts, editing The Smith Review, and aspiring for a writing career. During this time she had problems with her depression and attempted suicide. She moves onto Newnham college on a fulbright scholarship continuing the school paper. One of her major published works was The Bell Jar, which was inspired by events surrounding her depression in college. She tried to attempt suicide multiple times and much of her work was published after her death at the age of 30, including Ariel.

A relationship is an emotional connection to someone involving an interaction between two or more people. There are many types of relationships, some functional and others far from being workable. I will demonstrate this through my texts of; Little Fugue, and Morning Song both poems written by Sylvia Plath; the movie, Love Actually; and the book, Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce.

She was a very bright girl who won prizes and scholarships throughout her early childhood. In 1950, she went to Smith College and became a class president who had stories and poems published. In 1952, she was the guest editor at the Mademoiselle. The Bell Jar follows through her life almost exactly. Her being in Boston, the boys, guest editor, hospitalization, treatments. She was depressed and suicidal trying several times before finally succeeding by placing her head in the oven. She was put through Electrical shock treatments on multiple occasions. In 1963, Sylvia Plath committed suicide. ("JiffyNotes: Bell Jar, The: Summary: Historical Context." JiffyNotes)

Sylvia Plath and Esther Greenwood are two very similar people: Both women worked as a guest editor the summer before they attempted to take their life through similar means and both eventually recovered after treatment in a mental health facility. The tone of her final novel is one of depression and sadness which stems from the fact that Sylvia Plath wrote it while she was deeply depressed after the departure of her husband. The events in The Bell Jar were significantly impacted by the events Plath experienced in her life.

Sylvia Plath wrote The Bell Jar to liberate her from her past. This novel is the autobiographical tale of a young Sylvia Plath. Through Esther Greenwood, Sylvia manages to narrate almost exactly her life story. This narration includes her college days, her stay at the all-women’s college, her friendships with Doreen and Buddy Willard, her stay at a mental institution after a suicide attempt and even her deflowering. Sylvia penned the story in England under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas (Kehoe, para 16). Sylvia used a pseudonym because all though she changed all the characters’ names, the detail she put into her novel was borderline ferocious. The following essay will analyze why Sylvia wrote The Bell Jar, the

Sylvia Plath was born on October 27th 1932 in Boston Massachusetts. At the age of eight, Plath lost her father from diabetes, and soon after suffered a deep depression and a failed suicide attempt. Later in her life, in a deep depression, Plath wrote most of her poems to express her feeling and emotions, that weren’t published until after her death in 1963 after she committed suicide. Her father, husband, and depression influenced Plath to write a majority of her poems. The reason they were such a success is due to the fact that they were personal to Plath as she allowed the readers to relive her experiences.

Sylvia Plath’s life was one of a troubled woman. Her lack of sanity was deeply reflected in her works of writing. Her mental state was very much affected by her life experiences such as her feelings of betrayal towards her father and her instable marriage to Ted Hughes. Plath’s poetry, was a way to explore her mental anguish and share her fixation with death, due to her deathly depression. Despite Sylvia Plath’s crippling life, her poetry was constructed in such an artistic manner in which it touched the lives of many

Sylvia Plath was an iconic female author in the literary time period of “The Moderns”. She changed the literary basis with her book The Bell Jar. The source for her inspiration for her books was the very thing that led her to suicide. She used her to depression and pain to create something beautiful, but sinister. Sylvia Plath’s life was tragic in many aspects from her early life to her death, leaving over 230 books and poems.

Although once Plath had gotten older she moved to England, certainly her time in Winthrop affected her life and poetry.  Her father, Otto Plath, was a German professor of Biology, an entomologist, and also authored a book about bees; which would later become the subject of many of Plath's later poems. Her mother, Aurelia Plath was pursuing a career in teaching when she met Sylvia's father. At the age of eight, Sylvia Plath published her first poem, her father would die in Winthrop, that same year. This would be the start of her lifelong career as a poet. Plath lived and wrote in the 1950s through the 1960s in both America and England (Bawer). As a modern period poet and feminist, growing up during WWII, some of Plath's work was directly related to the issues that were developing in society at the time. After WWII, societies were often characterized by strict gender norms. Women were expected to remain safely in their homes, with being a wife and a mother as their ultimate joy and goal. Art and expression became away from women to escape the everyday pressures of society.