Sylvia Plath Research Paper

Sylvia Plath writes with dark humor in her poems that gives off a Gothic theme. In this fashion, it is a reflection of what she personally experiences because of some influences she had in the 1960’s, she is considered a confessional poet (Roberts & Zweig, 864). The term “Gothic” is used to describe something dark, depressing, and sorrow with added romance at times. The recurring theme throughout her poems are sorrowful and of self-pity, she also uses many metaphors that, at times, are taken out of context and usually are deemed depressing. Some of Plath’s poems such as “The Colossus,” “Cut,” and “Daddy” contain graveyard themes, death, blood, depressing feelings, and tragic events like Nazi Germany, Ku Klux Klan, and other war-like themes

The first publication took place when she was 8 years old but has been perfecting her poem writing throughout the majority of her life, perhaps as a prodigy or because her parents were an influence in her life as they were professors. Most of Plath’s influences on such poems are due to the certain circumstances. For instance, the suppression of women and negative events that have taken place. Woman suffrage was a period of time where women had no voice or power. Plath’s father was very strict, meaning that Sylvia felt no freedom to do anything. She feels more of a prisoner in her own home. She is eventually relieved by her father’s death because of the freedom from her father and has bitter feelings towards her dad, but also leads to a betrayed feeling and thus writes a few dark poems that relate to

She goes on to explain that the reason why Plath references “Kolossus,” is that this god was probably Sylvia’s personal god that inspired this poem, but in the sense that she used her father as the broken statue of “Kolossus.” She also elaborates on this because when Plath says that she cannot get her father to speak, that this figure is silent but she feels a servitude to him as a form of worship.
According to Gina Wisker, Plath’s domestic Gothic exposes the duplicities of the roles of women and the shocking inconsistencies of dread and affection. She also suggests that Plath’s poems de-familiarize the familiar and expectations of the lives of women and that Plath exposes dangers of complacency and the losses that come with the acceptance of a limited worldview. Gina obviously thinks that Plath has a Gothic theme to her poems (Wisker).
Gina Wisker explains about how some of Plath’s poems are shocking due to the inconsistencies of dread and affection because the poems de-familiarize the expectations of the lives of women. She also says that Plath exposes the dangers of complacency and that the losses that come with an acceptance of the limited views in the world. Plath’s poems do seem surprising to any reader, as the poems are written heavily with emotion and dark scenes such as graveyard themes or a broken up statue that she compares her father to because of how broken she sees him