The Life and Poetry of Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was a novelist and a poet in which she expressed her deep feelings about death, nature and her opinions about the universe. Plath was born on October 27, 1932 in Boston. Her father, Otto Plath, was a professor at Boston University and was also expert with bees. He published a story in 1934, “Bumblebees and Their Ways.” Sylvia was impressed by they way her father handles the bees. When Plath was only eight years old, her father died from diabetes, but before his death he was known as authoritarian. Her father left her full of guilt and despair that she promised to herself that she will never speak to God again. Her mother was Aurelia, who work two jobs to support Plath and her brother, Warren. After Plath’s death, her diary was revealed about her hatred towards her mother.

She studied at Gamaliel Bradford Senior High School, which is now called Wellesley High School. She was intelligent and well-adjusted student and many students admired her beauty. She won prizes and received scholarships because she appeared to be a model student. Her first poem, “Boston Herald,” was published when she was only eight and half years old. Plath’s story, “Sunday at the Mintons” was published in 1952, which was her first awarded story where they discover from a college magazine, Mademoiselle. Her experienced at New York was depressing and was the reason she wrote, “The Bell Jar” in 1953. She worked at the same college magazine during 1952 and experienced her first mental breakdown that led her to attempt suicide, and she was given shock treatments.

In Plath’s interview with Orr, she answers all the questions with feelings. She does not exactly know when she started writing, but she remembers writing when she was able to write about n...

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...ed anger for the past years “of doubleness, smiles, and compromise." In year 2002 was a complete story her explanation over her hatred.

Despite of her early death, critics continue to be surprise that she is gone in the world. Many critics over sees her poems very appealing with use of symbols such as bees, infants, wombs, flowers, mirrors, corpse, the moon and the sea. Her poems are commonly criticized because of her own personal relationship to her poems. They also noticed that she is obsessed with death and self-absorption in her poems. In addition, some critics also said that her poems can relate to the Holocaust which shows agony which are viewed gratuitous. However, most critics agree that her poems are from Plath’s personal experiences and ordinary affair that common people go through. Plath is considered as one of the respected poets in American history.