Literary Analysis of Sylvia Plath

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time to write, and Sylvias recurring depression and anxiety (Haugrud Reiff 30-33).

Times began to seem not as tough when Sylvia became pregnant with her first child and her and Ted decided to move back to England. They shared a small but cozy apartment, made lots of new friends, and had been in the works of writing and publishing new literature. Sylvia had signed a contract to publish The Colossus and Other Poems and Ted had published his second volume of poetry (Steinberg 81 82). Sylvia gave birth to her daughter, Frieda Rebecca Hughes, on April 1st, 1960. By November of 1960, The Colossus and Other Poems became published, with not much success or publicity. In November of 1961, Sylvia had miscarried, adding on to her poor mental health (Haugrud Reiff 37).

Things started to turn around again, however. She began taking classes again in London, where she began to write her first novel The Bell Jar, which eventually was deemed one of her best and most popular pieces of literature. Shortly after her miscarriage, Sylvia became pregnant with her second child, and her and Ted decided to upgrade to a larger home. By January 19th, 1962, Sylvia became the mother to her second child, Nicholas Farrar Hughes. She enjoyed her time after Nicholas’ birth by riding horses, raising bees, picking flowers, and enjoying nature. Another downfall occurred in Sylvia’s life when she learned about the affair that Ted Hughes was having with another woman named Assia Gutmann Wevill. Ted left his family to live with Assia in London, which had infuriated Sylvia. This sparked a writing mania for her, completing angry and slightly frightening poems such as “Daddy”, and thought-provoking other poems, including “Medusa”, “Lady Lazarus”, “The Jailer”, and more (Haugrud Reiff 40-43).

In the Autumn of 1962, The Bell Jar was signed to be published, but that did not end her hysteria and depression. On February 11th, 1963, Sylvia was fed up with her life and could not maneuver around her troubled life anymore. That morning, she made certain her children would be okay, leaving some breakfast and milk next to their beds, then shut, locked, and sealed their door shut with towels and tape, before proceeding into her kitchen, turning on the gas, and laying her head in the oven. By 10:30 am, 30 year old Sylvia Plath had been pronounced dead (Haugrud Reiff 44).

From a young age, Sylvia Plath faced many hardships; from the loss of her father, to the start of her life-long battle with anxiety and depression, she was not like many other children. Although she had this mess of a childhood, Sylvia carried out academic excellence and a happy, content facade from grade school up to her graduation of college. During her adulthood, Sylvia still had an obvious problem with insecurity of being a woman and the quality of her writing skills. Her marriage gave her a short lived period of happiness. Because of the affair her husband had, leaving Sylvia and their two children to start a new life, her self esteem was dragged to rock bottom and her insanity was raised to a record breaking high. Her writing during her short lifetime was underrated, and she unfortunately never lived to see her success as one of the best female writers in American literature. Sylvia Plath accurately displayed the impact of her father’s premature death and her resulting mental health issues, as well as her views on feminism in her society, through her various works of literature, including The Bell Jar, “Daddy”, “Ariel”, and “The Colossus”.

The Bell Jar is a fictitious novel, containing a protagonist that resembles multiple similarities to Plath and her views of the world, along with events that seem to have occurred in her own life. The main character in The Bell Jar is a girl named Esther Greenwood. Esther’s childhood is remotely similar to that of Plath’s childhood. Both had their fathers pass away when they were only nine years old. Also, they both lived in the suburbs of Massachusetts with their mother and younger brother, and both were extremely intelligent students. Plath and Greenwood both attended college to become writers and were able to be editors for different types of prestigious magazines (Haugrud Reiff 75 76).

Plath and Esther Greenwood both seem to have had certain insecurities that led to their distinct opinions on women’s roles in their societies and their own views on feminism. Both adolescent girls had a low self esteem. In the 1950’s, there was a distinct way that the ‘typical woman’ should act, and social standards on the types of education and occupations they should have. Both Plath and Greenwood were smart and attended great colleges at a time where not many women attended college. In the patriarchal societies they lived in, they were not considered the average women. For Plath, a stereotype that infuriated her was the fact that boys were intimidated and did not usually find interest in girls who show any sign of higher intelligence than themselves. For Greenwood, she did not understand why men did not believe that women had a place in the writing world (newspapers to be exact) and if they did write, that it should have to be about something feminine. One concept that neither of the two could grasp was the idea that girls had to be innocent and not have any sexual relations until marriage, while men were allowed to do whatever they wanted to do (Haugrud Reiff 16 75).

Plath and Esther Greenwood both suffered from mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. After Plath came home from New York from editing for Mademoiselle, she fell into a deep state of depression and attempted to commit suicide. In The Bell Jar, Esther, whom is in New York for writing as well, sinks into depression after a serious case of writer’s block and attempts to end her life by drowning herself. Both women attended electroshock therapy until they were deemed ‘cured,’ (Shuman 1246). As well as their childhoods, adulthood, and opinions seem to be almost identical, Plath and Greenwood’s love-lives were also similar to say the least. Plath’s husband had cheated on her, then left to start a new life with the other woman (Magill 2072). In The Bell Jar, Esther’s boyfriend cheats on her with a waitress, then leaves her as well. The Bell Jar exhibits various components of Plath’s life, through the protagonist and her life.

The poem “Daddy” reflects Plath’s mourning and heartache over the death of her father and the power that men had over women during the time period. One idea that this poem clearly possesses is the amount of power that she still felt that her father had over her. Otto had died when Plath was relatively young, meaning that he still had some sort of power or control over her as a parent when he died, that she felt drug