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 in Boston, Massachusetts on October 27, 1932. Both of her parents were professors, so she was driven to thrive in education. When Plath was eight years old, her father died from complications of diabetes; that had an influence in the poem she wrote later in life, “Daddy”. As she progressed in her schooling, she started to endure severe depression that lead to her first suicide attempt; swallowing sleeping pills. She survived and wrote about her experiences in the novel, The Bell Jar. She went back to study at Cambridge University in England after she recovered, and met her husband, poet Ted Hughes. They were married for six years before Hughes left Plath with two children. Her depression and mental condition continued to get worse. After she created many creative and dark poems in Ariel, which included ‘Lady Lazarus’, she tragically committed suicide by inhaling gas from her open oven. (Poetry Foundation, “Sylvia Plath.”)
Sylvia is best known for The Colossus, Ariel, and possibly her most controversial writing The Bell Jar (Learner1&2). Sylvia was the first poet to be posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her Collected Poems (Archive1). I want to believe that if Plath received this award when she was alive, it would have dampened her depression and make her rethink suicide. Sylvia Plath had a major part in the battle for feminism because she had such a difficult time conforming to the wife and mother roles in her life (Learner1). I think that Sylvia did not want to be a part of the feminist movement, but instead she was just handling her problems the only way she knew, through writing about them. Numerous people speculate what sent Sylvia over the edge. Some possibilities are the feminist movement using her as an icon, Hughes’ infidelity, or her father dying when she was at such a young age (Archive1). I think that Plath’s suicide had something to do with her being the jump starter for a movement and also not being able to please or satisfy her husband, which in her era was one of the most important roles in women’s
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.
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”.
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.
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.
Rachel Louise Carson was an award winning author whom was born on May 27, 1907. Rachel Carson was born in Springdale, Pennsylvania; from a young age she was taken with writing. As a young girl Rachel would submit poems and stories to magazines. As she grew older she became an environmentalist and biologist who tantalized her audience with multiple books on the marvels of the ocean. In one of the most controversial books of the twentieth century Rachel informed America of the risks of fertilizers and pesticide.
She followed her undergraduate study with a master's degree from Columbia University. She was married shortly after graduation from Columbia University and thus starting her professional career as an author of many different genres such as science fiction to children's literature ("Biographical").
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.
Sylvia Plath was a novelist, and an American poet. She was born on October 27th, 1932 in Jamaica plain, Massachusetts.
As she got older, Stella began to develop a love for writing. She would often times write short stories and poems about anything and everything. This love of writing even followed her into her academics. Her English teachers often spoke of Stella's passion for writing and in ninth grade Stella decided that her future would
Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932 in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. Her love for poetry started young as her father, Otto Plath, suddenly passed away after Sylvia’s 8th birthday, dying from undiagnosed diabetes. This would greatly influence her later works. After his passing, her mother, Aurelia, took Sylvia and her brother, Warren, to Wellesley Massachusetts to live with the grandparents. She had good memories when her father was around, this inspired her to write her first poem, that was published in The Boston Traveller. She wrote all throughout her childhood and eventually started writing short stories to be published in magazines. For example, she wrote a total of 45 pieces of work to the magazine and they eventually published
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
How Sylvia Plath's Life is Reflected in the Poems Daddy, Morning Song, and Lady Lazarus