The Tortured Soul
The Life of
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath was a talented
American writer who was well known for the imagery, flow, raw
emotion and personal confessions in her poetry. To even being to
grasp the intricacies of the symbolism used in her poetry and
prose, one must begin by understanding her life.
Born on October 27, 1932 in
Boston, Massachusetts, she was the daughter of Otto Plath and
Arelia Schober, both of whom were European immigrants. Her father
was a professor of biology at Boston University; her mother was a
teacher of German and English. Plath’s mother eventually
gave up her career at the request of her husband.
Not much has been recorded about
Plath’s early life, with the exception of her father’s
death when she was eight years old. Plath later stated that,
after his death, she was never happy again.
Excelling in school was usual and
even expected of Plath. She set high standards for herself and
often fulfilled them. Much of her time was spent out of the
company of other’s her age, not being a very popular person.
Instead, she spent her time writing and studying. Sylvia attended
Smith College in Massachusetts, under a scholarship, beginning in
September, 1950. Her junior year at Smith, she was selected for a
month long internship at the magazine, Mademoiselle, in
New York. In August, 1953, after returning from the internship,
she suffered a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide. Plath was
hospitalized, during which was given shock treatments and treated
with psychotherapy. Throughout her life, Sylvia Plath had been
plagued with a condition known as maniac depressive. She suffered
through much of her life extremely depressed and her obsessive
thoughts of death were constantly with her.
Sylvia Plath returned to Smith in
February, 1954, to finish her senior year. She graduated that
year with a Fulbright Fellowship scholarship which allowed her to
continue her studies at Cambridge University in England. While at
a party on February 25, 1956, she met her future husband, English
poet, Ted Hughes. Less than four months later, they were married
in London.
After their marriage, Plath
continued her studies under the Fulbright scholarship for a
second year and Hughes began teaching. In June, 1957, the two
sailed for the United States, where Plath taught freshman English
at her alma mater, Smith University. Within the next year, she
abandoned her job in order to pursue her writing career and to
escape the strain of grading essays. In the end of 1959, Plath
and Hughes sailed back to England, where they bought a house in
Devon and in the spring of 1960, Sylvia gave birth to her first
child, Frieda. Her first book of poetry, The Colossus, the
only volume to be printed during her lifetime, was published in
the fall.
In January, 1962, Plath gave
birth to her second child, Nicholas. During the following months,
she wrote poetry fervently, a hint of her returning poetic voice.
In her poetry, she struggled, as in her journal entries and
entire life, to find her own identity and self. In July of this
year, Sylvia learned of Hughes’s affair with Assia Gutman.
After returning from a journey to Ireland, Hughes separated from
Plath to go live with Gutman. Plath returned alone to their Devon
home and attempted to rebuild her life with her two children.
Continuing to write extensively, she used imagery, symbolism, and
her intense feelings to write her famous lyrical, confessional
poetry. Not wanting to spend another winter in Devon, Plath and
her two children moved to a flat in London. This proved to be a
very big mistake, for London faced the worst winter in its
history. Plath’s life became intolerable; the children were
ill, the weather unbearable, and she was facing one of the lowest
points in her depression, caused by her separation from Hughes.
In January, 1963, The Bell Jar, her longest prose work,
was published, credited only with lukewarm reviews. Her
experiences from her attempted suicide in 1953 are documented in
this book. Her mood continued in a downward spiral and on
February 11, 1963, at the age of thirty, Sylvia Plath killed
herself in the kitchen of her flat.
Sylvia Plath has served as a
model for many modern day poets, her work being analyzed by many.
She often used her daily life to create her poetry, using vivid
descriptions to express her complex, and often conflicting,
feelings, whether they were of despair, of anger or of the
happiness at being a mother. Early in her career, Plath tried to
use the styles of other authors and poets to enhance her own
work, never really being able to create her own style. A
difference can definitely be seen between the poetry from early
in her career and the poetry from the last few months of her
life. Towards the end of her life, she finally found her own
style, and tried to fuse the many outstanding qualities that had
only been seen singularly in her earlier works. It is a shame
that the literary world had to lose such a gifted poet to suicide
when she was just beginning to find a voice with which to clearly
and uniquely speak.
Bibliography
Dictionary of American Biography.
New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1981. Supplement 7:
1961-1965. Pp. 621-622
Gilson, Bill. Sylvia Plath Biography.
Http://sunsite.unc.edu/cheryb/women/Sylvia-Plath—bio.
September 11, 1997; 7:02pm. HTML text file.
Howe, Rita. Sylvia Plath: Development of
a Poet from "Tale of a Tub" to "Ariel".
written: November 18, 1995.
Http://www.wmich.edu/english/tchg/640/papers/Howe.Plath.dev.html;
September 11, 1997; 6:59pm. HTML text file.
Hughes, Ted and Frances McCullough. The
Journals of Sylvia Plath. New York: Ballantine Books,
1991
Magill, Frank. Critical Survey of Poetry.
California, New Jersey: Salem Press; 1992. Volume 5. Pp.
2592-2603.
Malcolm, Janet. "The Annals of
Biography: The Silent Woman." The New Yorker.
August 23, 1993: pp. 84-159.
Perbins, David. A History of Modern
Poetry. Harvard University Press; 1987. Pp. 590-595
"Plath, Sylvia." Collier’s
Encyclopedia. Volume 19, 1992. Pp. 140
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