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Sylvia plath biography essay
Life of sylvia plath confessional poetry
Essays on Sylvia Plath
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Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts. Plath’s mom met her soul mate while she was a master’s student at Boston University. Sylvia’s mom’s name was Aurelia Schober, and her dad’s name was Otto Plath. When Sylvia was only 8 years old, her father died from problems with diabetes. Her father was very strict and mean. Sylvia’s father’s death and strict authority was the reason for all her poems and stories. She specifically wrote a poem about her father, “Daddy”.
Sylvia was always driven to succeed in life even in her early years as a child. Plath had kept a journal from the age 11 and wrote poems and stories. She would publish them in regional magazines and newspapers. Sylvia’s first national publication was in the Christian Science Monitor in 1950. Plath had just graduated from high school. The year 1950, Sylvia went to college at Smith College. Plath was an alright student, not the best. Plath had a lot of problems when she was in college. In 1953 she was considered to be depressed and actually tried to kill herself. She ended up transferring to Summa Cum Laude and graduated in 1955.
After Sylvia graduated, she then moved to Cambridge, England. She moved with a Fulbright Scholarship. The early part of 1956, Plath was invited to a party and met her soon to be husband, the English poet, Ted Hughes. They were later on married on June 16, 1956.
Sylvia later returned back to Massachusetts in 1957. She was studying with Robert Lowell. Plath’s first collection of poems, Colossus, was published in 1960, in England. Then, published two years later in the United States. Sylvia returned back to England, so she could give birth to her and her husband’s two children. Their names were Frieda and Nicholas Hugh...
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...portant to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.”
This poem has so much meaning to it, you can see the insecurities in her heart. Being left for another woman would make any woman insane.
Works Cited
Ferretter, Luke. Sylvia Plath's Fiction : A Critical Study. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
Butscher, Edward. Sylvia Plath : Method And Madness. Tucson, Ariz: Schaffner Press, 2003. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
Spivack, Kathleen. With Robert Lowell And His Circle : Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz, And Others. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2012. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
In American society, the common stereotype is that the father has the role of the dominant figure in the household. Sylvia Plath and Sharon Olds may come across as two seemingly different poets, however, they are really quite similar, especially in their driving forces behind their writing styles in poetry. The lives of Plath and Olds are both expressive of the realities of a father-dominated family, in which both of these poets lost their fathers at a young age. This is significant because both poets have faced a similar traumatic event that has had everlasting effects on their adult womanhood, which is reflected in their writings. For both these woman, their accesses to father-daughter relationships were denied based on life circumstances. Ironically, their fathers were their muses for writing and are what made them the women they are today.
Sylvia Plath a highly acclaimed twentieth century American poet whose writings were mostly influenced by her life experiences. Her father died shortly after her eighth birthday and her first documented attempt at suicide was in her early twenties. She was married at age twenty-three and when she discovered her husband was having an affair she left him with their two children. Her depression and the abandonment she felt as a child and as a woman is what inspires most of her works. Daddy is a major decision point where Plath decides to overcome her father’s death by telling him she will no longer allow his memory to control her.
Aurelia Schober, Plath’s mother, was studying at Boston University when she fell in love with her professor that taught German and biology, Otto Plath, whom she would marry in January 1932. Later in that same year on October 27, Plath was born to the couple. Plath’s father passed away when she was only eight. (Academy of American Poets) From then on, Plath began publishing her poems. In everything she did, she strived towards being flawless; she had straight A’s, was a good daughter, and earned prestigious prizes (Gilson). Schober aided in pushing her daughter towards excellence and always made sure Plath knew how proud she was of her. In fact, Sylvia’s mother collected her daughter’s achievements and praised her highly for them (Liukkonen). By 1950, she had been given a scholarship to attend Smith College and had hundreds of publications, which she would add to substantially in the time she spent at Smith (Gilson).
Plath, Sylvia. The Journals of Sylvia Plath. Ed. Ted Hughes and Frances McCullough. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982.
Emily Dickinson is regarded as “America’s most original poet” and was born on December 10th, 1830 (CITATION1). During her life, she spent most of her time alone in her house, spending time with only herself and writing poetry. When she died at the age of fifty-five, her sister decided to publish the 1,800 poems Emily had written. Before her death, Emily had only published ten of her poems. Because of this, she was not widely known before she died, unlike Sylvia Plath. Sylvia Plath, on the other hand, is a well-known author and poet. She even won the Pulitzer Prize award for Poetry in 1982 (CITATION2). Sylvia was similar to Emily Dickinson in that she was not an outgoing person. In fact, she was often depressed, and eventually took her own life in 1963 (CITATION3). While unfortunate, Sylvia Plath had written many popular poems, such as “Daddy”, short stories, and a semi-autobiographical novel called “The Bell Jar”.
During a time when women didn't have many rights or received much recognition, Sylvia Plath was born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts on Oct. 27, 1932 (Rosenberg 10). Her parents would've never expected their daughter would one day become such a success in a male dominated profession of writing. At an early
"About." Personal Blog, n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2015. [When finding an explanation for the similarities between the writers, it is important to play close attention to biographies. In case the psychoeconomic factors that Ruonco describes are true, then biography constitutes most of the development of the Sylvia Plath affliction. Moreover, the biography provides an insight into the views of the author for a better and more accurate understanding of her poetry. Furthermore, it is imperative to use her auto-statement since she referres to her "muse" as something out of her control which can be traced to Kaufman's
Middlebrook, Diane. Her Husband: Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath--A Marriage. Boston: Penguin (Non-Classics), 2003. Print.
Giles, Richard F. “Sylvia Plath.” Magill’s Critical Survey of Poetry. Ed. Frank N. Magill, b. 1875. Pasadena: Salem Press, 1992.
The poem, “Mad Girl’s Love Song”, highlights Sylvia Plath’s struggle with depression and her mental illness. As a form of expression, Sylvia Plath wrote “Mad Girl’s Love Song” in 1953, her last years of her life. Six years into Plath’s marriage with English poet, Ted Hughes, depression started to kick off in her life. Hughes began seeing other women and not responding to Plath as her husband. According to the Poetry Foundation, “She let her writing express elemental forces and primeval fears”. Plath’s poetry slowly became more violent and intense. Many people like to blame Hughes for her mental illness. In 1953 Plath decided to end her life by using her gas oven.
"Daddy", by Sylvia Plath is a poem describing love and hate emotions the speaker has towards her father. The poem gives the reader some background of the relationship with the father and realizes that there was not always a hatred in the relationship. In this confessional poem, the reader learns how Plath feels on her father through her deepest secrets. Sylvia Plath was born in Boston, MA, on October 27, 1932 to the parents of Otto and Aurelia Plath (Sylvia). At a young age, her life took a downfall with the hearing of the passing of her father (Sylvia).
Sylvia Plath’s life was full of disappointment, gloominess and resentment. Her relationship status with her parents was hostile and spiteful, especially with her father. Growing up during World War II did not help the mood of the nation either, which was dark and dreary. At age 8 Plath’s father of German ancestry died of diabetes and even though their relationship was never established nor secure, his death took a toll on her. “For Sylvia, who had been his favorite, it was an emotional holocaust and an experience from which she never fully recovered” (Kehoe 90). Since she was so young she never got to work out her unsettled feelings with him. Even at age eight, she hid when he was around because she was fearful of him. When she was in his presence his strict and authoritarian figure had left an overpowering barrier between their relationship. Sadly enough by age eight Plath instead of making memories with her dad playing in the yard she resented him and wanted nothing to do with him (Kehoe). These deep-seated feelings played a major role in Plath’s poetry writings. Along with his “hilterian figure,” her father’s attitude towards women was egotistical and dismissive, uncondemning. This behavior infuriated Plath; she was enraged about the double standard behavior towards women. Plath felt controlled in male-dominated world (Lant). “Because Plath associates power so exclusively with men, her conviction that femininity is suffocating and inhibiting comes as no surprise” (Lant 631). This idea of a male-dominated world also influenced Plath’s writing. Unfortunately, Plath married a man just like her father Ted Hughes. “Hughes abandonment apparently stirred in her the memories and feelings she had struggled with when her ...
Sylvia Plath, an innocent scarred by her memories, shares her story through her considerably dark poems. On October 27, 1932 in
According to “Sylvia Plath” Sylvia Plath struggled with severe depression throughout her life. She first experienced depression during her third year of college because of insecurities and self-esteem issues. Furthermore, Plath’s troubled marriage with Ted Hughes fueled her depression later in life; he had cheated on her with a younger woman and left her to raise their two children. Once again, she was overcome by self-esteem issues and anxiety that led her down a dark path. Plath attempted suicide three times, and she succeeded on her third attempt at the age of thirty. She died
Plath’s father died early in her life leaving her with unresolved feelings, and this brought a lot of troubles later on in life. Sylvia was a great student but when she was overwhelmed with disappointments after a month in New York, she attempted suicide (“Sylvia Plath”). After receiving treatment and recovering, she returned to school and later moved to England where she met her future husband, Ted Hughes (“Sylvia Plath”). Their marriage with two children didn’t last when Ted had an affair. They separated and Ted moved in with the new woman, leaving Sylvia and their two children. Battling depression during this time, Sylvia soon ended her life. She left behind numerous writings that many might see as signs of her depression and suicide attempts.