Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Otto Plath and Aurelia Schober—a German immigrant professor and his student. For the first two years of her life, Plath grew up in the suburbs of Boston until her brother, Warren, was born. Then, the family moved to Winthrop, just east of Boston. Here, Plath grew deeply connected to the ocean and grew a fondness for the natural world, which she would write about later in her career. After her father's death when she was eight, her remaining family moved to Wellesley, Massachusetts, for more affordable living conditions. Her father’s death would later appear in her poems, as she grew to resent him for leaving when she was young, complicating all her relationships with men.

Only about a year after her father’s death, Plath began to gain recognition for her literary potential. Plath sent a letter to The Boston Herald that read, “Dear Editor: I have written a short poem about what I see and hear on hot summer nights,” and it was published that Sunday, August 10, 1941. Her desire to share her work with the world began when she was young, and did not cease as she grew older. She sold her first poem to The Christian Science Monitor and her first short story to Seventeen magazine. Throughout her life, she continued to be published in Seventeen. One of her most notable works run in Seventeen was the first one accepted into the magazine: “And Summer Will Not Come Again.” This short story was accepted during her senior year of high school and follows the lives of two children, Anne and Peter during the summer. Through their conversations, the fleeting nature of youth and the concept of lost innocence remain true, potentially mirroring Plath’s own feelings as she was on the brink of ending high school and pursuing adulthood.

Plath entered Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, as a scholarship student in 1951 and co-won the Mademoiselle magazine fiction contest the following year. The next summer, she received a coveted editorship position at the same magazine. Despite her academic and career success, Plath began to endure a losing battle with her mental illness and survived a suicide attempt with sleeping pills when she was 20. She was treated in a psychiatric ward with electroshock therapy, a painful procedure still used today. Plath recounts her experiences through another person’s perspective in her most famous novel, The Bell Jar.

The Bell Jar (1963) follows the life of the main character, Esther Greenwood, a scholarship student in New York who aspires to become a poet. Like Plath, Esther experiences immense success yet feels unfulfilled, eventually spiraling throughout the novel. The reader gets a detailed look into the life of a woman who begins to lose herself. Esther then survives a suicide attempt and is treated with electroshock therapy. The novel mirrors Plath’s life so closely that it is now considered semi-autobiographical.

After recovering from her hospitalization, Plath returned to Smith College and graduated with the highest honors in 1955. She decided to continue her education after receiving a grant to study at Cambridge University in England, where she met her future spouse, Ted Hughes. Their courtship was chaotic, and the whirlwind of their love led to their marriage in 1956. Both aspiring poets, they shared their work with each other in hopes of achieving greatness. However, mundane life caught up with Plath. In 1957, after moving to the U.S. together, Plath took up a job at her alma mater and found it difficult to find time to write, which strained her mental health. The couple eventually moved back to England, where they had two children and experienced a miscarriage, which inspired several of Plath’s poems.

Hughes and Plath split in 1962 after his affair with another woman, leaving Plath with two children. Later that year, Plath experienced a creative breakthrough, writing at least 26 of the poems she is best known for. In January of 1963, Plath discussed her most recent depressive episode with her general practitioner, who then prescribed her antidepressants. Unbeknownst to the doctor, Plath had a bad reaction to these pills when she lived in America, but they were under a different name in England. A month after these pills were prescribed, Plath was found dead in her kitchen by her live-in nurse after another suicide attempt.

Sylvia Plath was a visionary, a successful and intelligent woman whose immense literary talent continues to captivate readers, even though she could never truly find happiness in her own life. Her eccentric writing style, blurring the lines between fiction and the reality of her own life, invites readers to explore the depths of her mind, creating a personal, lasting connection between reader and author. Her legacy endures, not just from the talent of her writing but the insights she lends on the human condition, mental health, and feminism.

Why Did I Choose to Research Sylvia Plath?

I first read The Bell Jar in my senior year of high school. This book had me enthralled despite it being the hardest book I ever had to read. The devastation reigning from Plath through Esther called to me. What struck me most were the feminist themes woven throughout the book. The narrative exposes the harsh reality of how women’s autonomy is often stripped away, particularly in the realm of mental health. Observing the ways in which women are denied the right to make their own decisions once deemed unfit was both eye-opening and distressing. Sylvia Plath, despite her tragic death, is someone I will always admire for calling out these unfair ideals and for always trying her best to be what she believed she needed to be.

Works Cited

Clark, H. (2020, October 31). “Only Did What Poetry Told Us To Do:” A Portrait of Sylvia Plath On Honeymoon With Ted Hughes. Time. https://time.com/5905427/sylvia-plath-honeymoon-ted-hughes/

MonkEL. (2015, August 10). “A bit of a professional”— Sylvia Plath | National Portrait Gallery. Si.edu. https://npg.si.edu/es/blog/%E2%80%9C-bit-professional%E2%80%9D%E2%80%94-sylvia-plath

Poetry Foundation. (2016). Sylvia Plath. Poetry Foundation; Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sylvia-plath

‌Read Sylvia Plath’s first published poem, which she wrote at age 8. (2021, October 28). Literary Hub. https://lithub.com/read-sylvia-plaths-first-published-poem-which-she-wrote-at-age-8/#:~:text=Eight%2Dyear%2Dold%20Plath%20submitted

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2019). Sylvia Plath | Biography, Poems, Books, & Facts. In Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sylvia-Plath

‌‌Wikipedia Contributors. (2019, February 26). Sylvia Plath. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath

This article was published on 11/10/24