Sylvia Plath free essay sample

What makes a good poet? Having an imagination? Natural talent? Being a hard worker? Or oddly enough, can it be personal suffering and victimization? Daddy, daddy, you bastard, Im through (Plath 80) is what Sylvia Plath emotionally portrays in her admired poem, Daddy. This is the last line of the poem, also being one of the last lines she would ever write in her life. Sylvia Plath excelled in school since she was a child; she was ambitiously driven to succeed. She kept a Journal from the age of eleven and her poems were published in regional magazines and newspapers. She excelled at Smith College, writing 400 poems throughout her four years there (neuroticpoets. com). Her success and talent made up the condescending, smooth surface to a Jagged disturbed and depressed woman. Plath suffered from self- destruction, which only weakened her further. Raw emotion Jumps off of the pages as one intently reads her works. Ironically, her personal struggles are what make her work so astonishing, proclaiming Plath to be one of the best poets who has ever lived. Sylvias childhood upbringing is what started these person struggles, her father being the first indicator to her emotional spiral. Plath was born on October 27, 1932 in the middle class town of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. Her mother, Aureila, taught English and German studies at Boston University, and that is how she met her husband, Otto, who was an entomologist at the same school. She also had a younger brother, Warren, who is four years younger than her. Plath was known to be sensitive, a bit of a perfectionist, and a popular straight A student (biography. com). These qualities led her to write poetry like it was second nature. But her father took an enormous toll on her well-being. He had been a strict man with authoritarian ttitudes; his German roots definitely took a part of these mannerisms. There relationship was emotionally detached and silent. It is not for certain that Plath is the narrator of Daddy but most readers assume that this is correct. She says, l never could talk to you. The tongue stuck in my Jaw. It stuck in a barb wire snare (Plath 24-26). The narrators tongue being stuck demonstrates that she could never talk to her father even if she wanted to. What is more troubling, her tongue got stuck in barbwire snare. Barbed wire snare was used in concentration camps preventing Jews from escaping. In the narrators case, it would rip her tongue to shreds. She was a Jew trapped in an uncomfortable, malicious area surrounded by her fathers deadly barbwire snare. Unfortunately, they could never resolve their issues because Otto Plath passed away on October 8, 1940 due to complications of diabetes (biography. com). Sylvia was only eight years old. It is daunting that her father died when she was only a little girl and he disturbed her that tremendously. The angst in Daddy not only discusses her feelings of being dominated by her Nazi-like father, but her unresolved desire to have perhaps worked things out with him. Her depression enormously kicked in during her years at Smith College, which was the beginning of Sylvias spiraling pattern. Plath encountered many ups and downs at doubt her talent as a poet resulting in stress, illness, and depression. This was an ongoing cycle. For example, she wrote and published in admired magazines like Seventeen, Harpers, and The Christian Science Monitor. She even landed an editorial position at Mademoiselle Magazine in New York City. But when she was denied from a course at Harvard Summer School, she spiraled down again and suffered from insomnia. Not long after this, her mother noticed scars on Sylvias legs, and Plath proclaimed that she in fact tried to kill herself (neuroticpoets. com). This was Just the beginning of an awful road ahead. No matter what the style of writing, Ms. Plath could exquisitely convey words into a form of art. During her years at Smith, she writes in her personal Journal, To annihilate the world by annihilation of ones self is the deluded height of desperate egoism. The simple way out of all the little brick dead ends we scratch our nails against. I want to kill myself, to escape from esponsibility, to crawl back abjectly into the womb (neuroticpoems. com). Her comparison to little brick dead ends triggers a clear imagery of her desperation, as well as her want to crawl back abjectly into the womb. It is outrageous that despite her poetic gift, she is so miserable. The electro shock therapy she received worsened her condition even more leading Plath to attempt to commit suicide in 1953; she took up to forty sleeping pills (neuroticpoets. om). Aurelia Plath, Sylvias mother, was not exactly the most supportive and loveable woman; she was an additional influence to her daughters troubles. Aurelia had her own problems too. Sylvia was not fond of her. She showed minor love and great enw towards Plaths talents and successes, almost like she wanted to live through her daughter. Plath states, What to do with her, with the hostility, undying, which I fee l for her? I want, as ever, to grab my life from out under her hot itchy hands. My life, my writing, my husband, my un- conceived baby'(salon. com). Plath felt that the potential positivity that could have occurred in her life was all taken away from Aurelia (or kept under her hot itchy hands). This was because of the way Aurelia raised Sylvia; she was a widow with two ids at a young age, but instead of staying strong and raising her children to the best of her ability, she provided a weak, insensitive mother fgure for Sylvia and Warren. In Plaths only novel, The Bell Jar, the relationship that the main character, Esther, has with her mother is extremely based on Plaths personal relationship with Aurelia. It is speculated that Plaths 1953 suicide attempt had a lot to do with her strained relationship with her mother. l lay in bed when I thought my mind was going blank forever and thought what a luxury it would be to kill her, to strangle her skinny eined throat which could never be big enough to protect me from the world. But I was too nice for murder. I tried to murder myself: to keep from being an embarrassment to the ones I loved and from living myself in a mindless hell Id kill her, so I killed myself (salon. com). Sylvia said. Plath horridly describes her mother having a skinny veined throat and claims that it would never be big enough to protect Sylvia from the world. She felt as if her own mother did not care about her. She had never received full attention and pure love from Aurelia, and that is hard for ny daughter, especially one without a father, to accept and cope with. Despite her successes, Sylvia is disturbingly obsessed with death, and it seemed like it would officially never leave her mind or poetry. The poem Lady Lazarus is a gloomy, to cope and survive. Comparing herself to a Jew like in Daddy, Plath focuses more on her personal suffering than the immoralities of her father. To begin the poem she writes, l have done it again. One year in every ten01 manage it (Plath 1-3). Plath does not lead up to what she is writing about. She immediately Jumps into her main topic: death. She has tried to end her life multiple times, one year in every ten. She does not state what it is, which only makes the first stanza creepier in a sense because the reader needs to fgure out that Plath is in fact describing death and suicide. A sort of walking miracle, my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade, (Plath 4-5) Plath writes. This line is contradicting and gruesome because she is saying that at least her skin is bright and she believes it to be a miracle. When in reality, it was as bright as a Nazi lampshade. Nazis were believed to make lampshades out of Jewish peoples kin once they were murdered. The topic of death takes over her writing as well as her perso nal life, resulting in thoughts and literal attempts of suicide. Her melancholy poems are too brilliant for Sylvia to be this unhappy. Thankfully, the light briefly shined on Plath after this dark period, but her father still lurked and ate away at her well-being, not matter how successful her career was. She was awarded a $1 ,200 scholarship for her next year at Smith College and a scholarship for Harvard Summer School. Oddly, she died her hair to platinum blonde declaring a new look. She also received the Fulbright scholarship, sending her to Cambridge to start an exciting Journey to study literature in the fall. She published her first book of poetry, The Colossus in 1960 in England (neuroticpoets. com). The book was full of life and Plaths unconditional forte. She writes about her father in the poem, The Bee- Keepers Daughter. She used bees as the major theme because her father was an insect expert, particularly knowing an immense amount of information about bees. She writes, my heart under your foot, sister of a stone (Plath 7), explicating how distance he was with her. She also says, The queen bee marries the winter of your year (Plath 21) implying that Otto was more preoccupied with his bees than paying attention to his daughter. The book was widely popular in the United Kingdom, receiving many positive reviews. Her fathers memory was definitely present and consuming her mind. Despite this upcoming brief success, Plaths agony was still used as a poetic tool to string her along her ever-changing life. The metaphorical cuts and bruises did not mend, naturally having the speaker experience physiological gashes, or long-term effects. Sylvia underwent the Electra omplex by marrying Ted Hughes in 1956; he was a man who was very similar to her father (neuroticpoets. com). Her deep insecurities led her to not know any better; he was the only kind of man she was familiar with. Ted was an English writer that Plath met while studying in England (neuroticpoets. com). At first he swooped her off of her feet, but she soon realized what she had gotten herself into. l made a model of you, she says directed to her father, A man in black with a Meinkampf look And a love of the rack and the screw. And I said I do, I do. The man that she marries is like her ather; he is a dark, evil man in black and has the Meinkampf look (Plath 64-67). The most disturbing part of this stanza in Daddy is his love of the rack and the screw. The rack and the screw are both gruesome torture instruments that were used during Medieval times and the Inquisition period. She implies that like her father Plath was not literally tormented with these instruments, but to her the abuse by her husband was akin. In the New York Times Book Review, Denis Donoghue says, Plaths early poems, many of them, offered themselves for sacrifice, transmuting agony, hearts waste, into gestures and styles. Plath s agony, especially the agony she felt due to her strained marriage to Hughes, converted straight onto paper and into her unique style of writing. Plath dug an even deeper, darker hole to isolate herself in as her life kept deteriorating. She suffered from mental sickness and cried out for help; Hughes cruelly left her to fend for herself. She speculated that he was cheating on her. One day, his mistress called the house phone and Sylvia answered before Ted had a chance to (neuroticpoets. com). She was devastated. Their attempts to save the arriage failed, no matter how many times they attended counseling. Clearly, Sylvia was not a woman of strength. She was extremely sensitive and did not even take minor problems well, never mind her husband cheating on her. Her husband was aware of her condition but was disgustingly insensitive to it. Ted Hughes was speculated of telling Plath that he and his mistress, Assia, wished that Sylvia would kill herself because then he could sell the house. He also told her that he hated living with her and wished she would move out (neuoroticpoets. com). This was a sickening thing to say to somebody as fragile as Sylvia. Ted was in fact a man in black with a Meinkampf look. For once, Plath was courageous enough to officially separate from him. She unleashed her harsh frustration by writing more intense poetry. She expressively says in Daddy, If Ive killed one man, Ive killed two† (Plath 71). She metaphorically killed her father; he physically vanished from her life. And she clearly has separated from, or killed her husband of seven years too. She compares her husband to a vampire when she says The vampire who said he was you And drank my blood for a year, Seven years, if you want to know (Plath 72-74). Her husband has been draining her life away, Just as a vampire would drink its victims blood. Blood represents life physically; if there is no blood in the body, then one cannot survive. Spiritually, blood is pure and by having it sucked out, the narrator is losing the little purity she has left. Plath had lived a roller coaster life, and unfortunately, this particular roller coaster Just kept going down. Unlike any normal mother who cherishes and loves their children, Sylvias children were not very important to her, she was too caught up in her own problems to focus r genuinely care for them, which only adds more madness to Sylvias legitimate insanity. Cara Ellison disturbingly demonstrates Sylvias carelessness in her article, Sylvia Plath and l. She writes, l believe that Sylvia loved her children as things, but I also believe that she was prepared for them to die with her. I derive that from her poems. Particularly, the chilling, Death Co. of November 14, 1962 (caraellison. com). In Death and Co, Sylvia writes, The babies look in their hospital Icebox, a simple Frill at the neck, Then the flutings of their Ionian Death- owns, Then two little feet (14-19 Plath). When a child is born in the hospital, it is supposed to be a beautiful occurrence, as the parents gaze at them through the glass window from the observatory. But Sylvia describes this moment in such a harsh, unsettling manner when she explains that the baby is in an icebox wearing a talent. But this talent should not be applauded. Plath clearly has no emotion or interest for the miracle of life. She is too distracted with her own issues, but that does not give her the right to show hardly any love for her own offspring. Ellison is ight; Plath considered Frieda and Nicholas as things (caraellison. com), frill at the neck, (14-19 Plath) rather than her treasured children. Clearly, they were unimportant and when they were mentioned in her works, it was in a negative and daunting manner. Plath was not Just a careless and mean woman; she was literally mad and suffered from severe mental issues. She simply did not have the proper tools to be a good mother and serve as a fine model to her children. Sylvias daughter and son should have been the one thing to encourage Plath to halt her personal spiral. Sylvia underwent one of the last dark phases in her life and was dangerously close to completely giving up. This chilling time lead up to her most extreme and stimulating poetry yet, which would later be published in the book, Ariel. She was living alone in London with her two children, daughter Frieda and Nicholas, through a very cold winter. During this time, Sylvia wrote a series of poems, which some believe to be her best works. On her 30th birthday, she wrote, Poppies in October (neuroticpoets. com). It is shorter than most of her poems, with stimulating phrasing and vivid imagery. The title is striking and raises curiosity because poppy flowers cannot bloom in the fall. It is almost like Plath feels out of season Just as poppies are during autumn. She feels out of place, and is questioning her being; she is suffering through a major downfall. Poppies in October is not as harsh and cruel as her other poetry, instead having a blue and humble ambiance to it. Throughout this period, she also composed Getting There. It depicts a Journey that Plath is taking to a literal destination, but it is her personal Journey to become at peace with herself. The carriages rock, they are cradles. And l, stepping from this skin00f old bandages, boredoms, old faces (Path 64-66). Sylvia is stepping out from her body, obtaining detachment and liberation. The last line states, Step up to you from the black car of Lethe, Pure as a baby (Plath 67-68). She has reached her destination. According to Greek mythology, Lethe is the river of forgetfulness. The dead drank from the river when they arrived in the underworld. Sylvia is no longer a woman who lashes out, is violent, or forceful. She Just wants to forget everything that she has experienced in the past, and become one with God. Her soul is vacant mptied. She does not have any strength or might left in her and is better off drinking the water from Lethe. Sylvia Plath once said, l talk to God but the sky is empty. She had lost hope in her husband, in her father, in herself, and now in God himself. Universally, God is always the one essence that will always comfort and guide one in a time of need. But Plath has even given up on one of the most holy fgures to exist. The sky is empty (goodreads. com), or in other words, Sylvias Being is rapidly disintegrating and is close to becoming completely vacant. There isnt a cloud or beam of sunshine left n the sky pushing her to go on. Sadly, on February 11, 1963, Sylvia Plath killed herself with cooking gas (neuroticpoets. com). She was only thirty years old. She left this world too young, along with leaving her two young children behind. Her severe father and insensitive mother emotionally damaged Sylvia from the very beginning, starting her wild spiral and leaving Plath to feel weak and deserted, which caused Sylvia to be be forgotten, but should one feel guilty while reading Plaths poetry, knowing that her cruel personal battles resulted in such superb work? This idea is bittersweet and ortrays an immense amount of irony. Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well, (Plath 43-45) Plath writes in Lady Lazarus. Clearly, Sylvia Plath was a complex and outrageous woman considering she described death as an art, but devotees of the arts cannot help but be fascinated and drawn by her remarkable poetry. Plath suffered from manic-depression. It is a complex disorder, classified as a mental illness causing extreme mood swings and irrational behavior. The symptoms of this condition can be looked down upon, but unintentionally, Sylvias broken, nhappy, and self-destructed complexity can be embraced in a sense because it is what makes her poetic gold valued today.