Plath's Writing example essay topic

Sylvia Plath and Her Writing Experiences During the years of Sylvia Plath's life she was known as a goddess and a heroine because of her excellent writing. Her writing revolved around aspects of her short life. Plath often wrote about her personal experiences with illness, her parents, and her family. Plath's father died when she was eight years old of a pulmonary embolus. In the poem "Daddy", Plath's only imaginative way of being reunited with her father was to die (Hall 1). Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts.

She accepted a scholarship to Smith College in Massachusetts during September of 1950. This was only the beginning of her education. She was later invited to study German at Harvard. After doing this, she went to England for one semester. During her Christmas break she toured London, where she met and married Ted Hughes (Hall 4-5). In June of 1957, they returned to the United States together.

Plath had accepted a position to teach freshman English at Smith College. She was an excellent teacher, but hated grading essays, and after one year the stress got to her and she gave up her position. She then made a living by writing and working part-time (Hall 7-8). In 1959, London was again their destination. Not long after their arrival Plath got pregnant. After giving birth to her daughter, Frieda, Plath's book, The Colossus, was published.

The reviews for her book were excellent. The public loved her (Hall 8). Two years later Plath and Hughes bought a house. Not long after they moved in, Plath received a grant that allowed her to write The Bell Jar.

During this time Plath had a miscarriage, but was able to have her second child, Nicholas, in January of 1962. After settling her new child in her home, her poetic voice returned and within ten days she composed six poems (Hall 8-9). Plath learned that Hughes was having an affair, and she was left alone with her children. On February 11, 1963 she realized that she was unable to take care of her children because of her depression. Leaving her family and her future in writing behind, Plath committed suicide in the kitchen of her home (Hall 9-10). Sylvia Plath wrote poetry as if she was a diarist, but this has nothing to do with her work.

Synthesis was the proper way to identify Plath's writing. Even when her poetry was lyrical it was confessional, but this was not often. During her last years she wrote her poetry mostly from a personal point of view. She did not create speakers; her work was more effective when she was considered to be the speaker.

At first she seemed to be unaware of who she was, but later found herself (Magill 405-406). Plath's emotions ran through the words' of her poetry. Symbols were used very often in her work. She symbolized the surroundings that affected her. She mentioned colors, trees, fetuses, and corpses in her poetry. The most important to her were the moon and the sea.

Her fascination for these two symbols was amazing. Every symbol she used, and there are many more, had a meaning that only she was familiar with (Magill 406). A major talent that Plath possessed was being able to talk in poems as if she was writing in her own diary. The mood of her poems reflects her internal feelings.

Being able to write in this form allowed Plath to excel in writing literature (Magill 406). Plath's strongest asset may have also been her weakest at one time. She realized that she was unable to write from the voice and mind of someone else. She was quoted saying "I shall perish if I can write about no one but myself".

After succeeding with this quality the public gained interest because they felt they could relate to her emotions. Plath was satisfied with this reasoning and continued writing using the talent that everyone expected of her (Magill 406-407). Plath began to face difficulties in her life and her writings were reflecting this. She involved her personal drama in her poetry. Though the tone was not always vulgar, her writing was seen as being horrifying.

When looked into, one could notice that her tone was therapy for herself, as if she had nowhere else to go for help (Magill 407). In some of her work, Plath becomes an active character. She becomes a character that is out to help others. In "Nick and the Candlestick", she is protecting a child from lightning by having it hit her instead.

Her change from being depressed and helpless to happy and helpful showed that this author was suffering from major personal issues. Her life was changing everyday, and so was her writing (Magill 407). She also wrote as an unidentified character. In "Channel Crossing", she takes away the speakers identity by showing excitement of a storm that was engaged at sea. She did not always end her poetry using an unidentified character; sometimes, she wrote as a person that was discovered during the poem. In "The Bee Meeting", she wrote as someone that was discovered and kept that identity because they knew of no other.

"Lady Lazarus" was a poem that showed Plath searching for her own identity. She finally exposes herself as a woman who lived as if she was there to tend to males; as if she was living in a man's society. (Magill 407-408). Finally, Plath found the person that fit her. She had found herself. She was now the person that satisfied the world.

She no longer had to search for who she was. She was not satisfied with who she found and this led to her suicide. Without her writing, she may have lived a better life, or maybe it would have been worse. A couple of months before Sylvia Plath's suicide, she wrote "Daddy" which consisted of eighty lines divided into five line stanzas. The poem was told from the first person point of view of a daughter that was seeking for a resolution dealing with the conflicts she had with her father; a man that her husband reminded her of. The beginning of this poem said "You do not do, you do not do / Any more" which symbolized her anger that she had toward her father (Jason 902).

The poem's second stanza starts with "I have had to kill you", while comparing her father to being "Marble-heavy, a bag full of God". Then she compares him to a "Ghastly statue". This was a metaphor introducing her father as godlike, and then progressing him to being demonic. It showed her confusion in the way she felt toward him.

Being a young child at the time of his death, she experienced many emotions, as would any daughter (Jason 902). Her father's Nazi roots are referred to in stanza four.