Sylvia Plath, a Poet and Her Depression

Saying Sylvia Plath was a troubled woman would be an understatement. She was a dark poet, who attempted suicide many times, was hospitalized in a mental institution, was divorced with two children, and wrote confessional poems about fetuses, reflection, duality, and a female perspective on life. Putting her head in an oven and suffocating was probably the happiest moment in her life, considering she had wanted to die since her early twenties. However, one thing that was somewhat consistent throughout her depressing poetry would be the theme of the female perspective. The poems selected for analysis and comparison are, ”A Life”(1960),”You’re”(1960), “Mirror” (1961), “The Courage of Shutting-Up” (1962) and

Sylvia Plath inserts both her feelings and life experiences into her literature- and was also highly influenced by Dickinson herself- but especially into her novel The Bell Jar. Plath uses parallelism to her benefit when she first attempted suicide in 1953, it is stated in the book just as Plath recalls the predicament and Plath admitted to saying herself that the attempt of suicide with her mother’s sleeping pills was “ blissfully succumbed to the whirling blackness to the eternal oblivion”(“Sylvia Plath”. Project Gutenberg) and goes into very immense detail of her thought process before the attempt to meet death. Stating this and reliving this in her novel only help her become new. Plath wanted to be better, so writing about it not only

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 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 is the author of the Bell Jar and was an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer (JRSM. June, 2003). The Bell Jar book was published in London a month before Plath’s death in January, 1963. The book was first published under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, and then later published in Plath’s own name. Esther Greenwood is the main character in the Bell Jar. Esther suffered from mental illness and struggled against depressive environment and continuously aggravated madness that led to her suicide and death (JRSM. June, 2003). I ague that Esther’s mental illness was aggravated by her internal pressure and depressive environment in which she lived.

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.

While it is sad, it is interesting to see how depression can slowly break down an individual to someone who feels nothing but apathy. For people who struggle with the illness, no happy thoughts can changed how they perceive the life and the world around them. It’s not as easy as getting a massage or thinking happy thoughts to change their mood and take away all that sadness, emptiness, and all that negative self-talk. The “Bell Jar” is a contemplation of the despairing life of Esther Greenwood and her descent into darkness. She personifies the actual mental struggle and the tumultuous life of the author, Sylvia Plath who, at a very young age suffered from clinical depression.

Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 27th, 1932 (“Sylvia Plath” 1). She was an only child for just two years when her brother Warren was born, and it was at this time, her family moved to Winthrop, Massachusetts due to financial reasons. Winthrop is located on a peninsula and it was days spent on the docks where Plath became infatuated by the sea, which is apparent in her novel, The Bell Jar (Steinberg 1). Plath’s parents were Otto Emil Plath and Aurelia Schober Plath. Otto taught Biology and German at Boston University and was also a distinguished author. Unfortunately in 1940, he suddenly died of cancer, which ultimately haunted Sylvia and scarred her for the rest of her life. Due to the loss of income, Plath’s mother, Aurelia, began

Numerous people suffer from depression at some point in their lives. Some cases are more temporary, while others last longer. Author Sylvia Plath, who suffered from depression, wrote an autobiographical novel entitled The Bell Jar. In her novel, Plath uses a fictional character to walk her readers through her personal experiences (Plath 1-244). She describes in details the character, setting, plot and theme (1-244).

Sylvia Plath was a American Poet that lived a life of betrayal,depression,and madness. Some People say Plath’s works are really good because of her depression and madness. Plath is misunderstood because of her poems and because people don't see the meaning of her poems. Yet sadly people look away because it is “too dark” or “too depression” and miss the hidden deep meaning behind it all. Sylvia Plath was born in Boston,Massachusetts in October, 1932.

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.

Perhaps the most famous work of Sylvia Plath’s is The Bell Jar -- a book that follows the mental deterioration of a nineteen-year-old girl named Esther through the narration of Esther herself. Although Sylvia Plath hated life in general and committed suicide at the age of 32 after her husband left her, the myriad autobiographical elements, metaphors, and motifs that appear throughout her works produce a beautifully vivid representation of people, the world, and life itself (“Sylvia Plath”).

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 influenced to write poems early on in her life. One of the biggest influences within her writing include her father, Otto Plath. Otto Plath had died from an illness caused by diabetes in 1940. After this traumatizing event, Plath had written very vivid poems explaining her problematic relationship with her father, and her feelings after he had died. She wrote a poem named Daddy (“Sylvia Plath” Poetry). Daddy is a poem including a characteristic person representing Plath’s father in real life. Her father in the poem is a dark person that Sylvia Plath has to “kill” (Ardagh, Emily). Plath was very upset about this sudden death of her father, so she thought the perfect idea was to write a poem about him. Another important person

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