Sylvia Plath

"Sylvia Plath"

The live-in nurse walked into a scene of terror. Tape covered the creases on all the doors, as not to let the gas escape from the kitchen. On a small cloth the woman lay with her head far inside the gas oven, while the woman's children were trapped semi-safely in the other room with the bedroom window ajar. Sylvia Plath was 30 years old on the night of February 11th, 1963, when she took her own life by way of carbon monoxide poisoning. In the months and weeks before her suicide, Plath had left her husband or been left by her husband, because of his affair with another woman, and she moved to a free, but unacceptable, apartment in London with her two young children. She and her children were often ill, and Plath slipped into despair (Feinmann). During those final months of her life is when Plath wrote many of her most notable poems through a burst of inspiration, poems that would not be published until after her death. Her troubled fascination with suicide and death, nature, confessional-like writing, and her struggles with finding her role in a man's world within her poetry contribute to her popularity as a great American poet of her time.

Sylvia's poetry can often be interpreted to reflect different parts of her life, as her writing was always closely related to things that were a part of her. During the Great Depression, Sylvia Plath was born in Boston, on October 27th 1932. Her parents, Aurelia and Otto Plath, were both teachers, and Sylvia was their first child. Shortly after Sylvia's 8th birthday her father passed away from complications with untreated diabetes. Reports say that, "Otto [...] would later figure as a major image of persecution in his daughter's best known poems--'Daddy,' 'The Colossus,' and 'Lady Lazarus.' His sudden death [...] plunged the sensitive child into an abyss of grief, guilt, and angry despair which would haunt her for life and provide her poetry with the central motifs and tragic dimensions that characterize it" (Encyclopedia). Sylvia didn't allow the death of her father to affect her performance academically however, even if the death tormented her on the inside. Plath went on throughout her early years winning many academic awards, and showcasing her unique talents as a writer. In 1942 Plath's mother purchased a home in Wellesley, and living there contributed to Plath's consciousness of all things having to do with nature, which can also be read throughout Plath's work. In the August 1950 issue of Seventeen magazine Plath's first story, "And Summer Will Not Come Again," was published, proving she was on her way (Encyclopedia).

After having a number of published works, Sylvia received a scholarship to attend Smith College in 1950. While she was a student at Smith College Plath spent some time as a guest editor for a major magazine company in New York, in the summer of 1953. The Enclyclopedia of Biography explains that "{[h]er experiences in New York City were demoralizing and later became the basis for her novel The Bell Jar." Shortly after, she returned to Wellesley, her mother's home, and she went missing for two days. She apparently suffered a nervous breakdown and records say that, "Plath tried to kill herself by taking sleeping pills. She eventually recovered, having received treatment during a stay in a mental health facility" (Biography). While in the facility, Plath received electroshock treatment and psychotherapy. After recovering from her ordeal she went back to Smith College and graduated with honors in 1955(Biography).

Following her graduation from Smith College, Sylvia received a full scholarship to Newnham College, Cambridge University in England where she met fellow poet Ted Hughes. They met at a part on February 25, 1956 and so began their