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An Analysis Of Sylvia Plath's Poetry

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After the dramatic downturn towards the end of Sylvia Plath’s life, a lot of literature critics seemed to finally grasp the veiled meanings in Plath’s poetry. Her work displays signs of overwhelming emotion; one can’t help but assume that the vivid language resembles true personal references. There were many repeated themes throughout the collection that suggested how her mental stability exposed to this imagination of her poetry, led to her suicide. It came to terms just how fragile Plath was and the depression that overcame her was the push that led to the devastating suicide during the harsh winter of 1963. The depression she faced earlier in time was further enhanced after the affair that her husband, Ted Hughes had with Assia Wevill, shattering …show more content…

On the account of Sylvia Plath’s suicide, not many people understood the choices she made and the reasons behind them but it can be interpreted that the theme of men has a major role in the circumstances she was placed in, especially in relation to her husband Ted Hughes. Throughout the collection, we seem to be under the impression of a very negative vibe from the male persona as a lot of her poems portray a sense of anger towards the male characters. Quite a few of Plath’s poems seem to bring up feelings of sorrow and resentment that suggest the emotional state of Plath herself. Being diagnosed as clinically depressed for the majority of her life does imply that her mentality was not disrupted by Hughes but intensified by his wrongdoings. Biographically speaking, her emotional state can be brought back to her childhood in relation to her father. After the death of Otto Plath, it can be seen that the emotional trauma that she faced upon her father’s passing away resurfaced in the poem, ‘Daddy’. Not only was it a way for her to express her feelings about her father but she also found it as a way to surface the feelings she had for her husband in a comparative way. The poem itself is seen in a very dark and exasperated tone but the feeling of nostalgia and loneliness is also carried out as she reminisces the memories of her father and the longing to see him. Within her poem, she writes, “At twenty I tried to die/ And get back, back, back to you.” The personal reference to her suicide attempt and the explanation supported, exposes the readers into the trauma she faced and what led to her tragic attempt at death. Repeatedly mentioning the word “back” shows how deeply she longs to be with her father and it has caused her to feel suicidal. The repetition enhances her pleading as a way of escaping the dark

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The father, on the other hand, overwhelmed by joy and grief becomes oblivious of the present and travels into the future. His lost of thought rests in his inability to “come up with one.” The action of “the man rubbing his chin, scratching his ear” confirms the speculation that he is lost amid in the future, unable to satisfy the present. He thinks that “the boy will give up on his father” and all these fragments of gloomy thoughts incites feelings of unfulfilled desires and inevitable parting.” The author strategically creates this contrast between the points of view due highlight the boy’s eager await and his father’s internal conflict, whose thoughts bring into the light his affectionate relationship with his son, whom he is afraid to lose one

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In the poems she wrote in her younger years, the part of Sylvia that is left behind from her father’s death has been “amputated from reality; it is incomplete, false, because an essential part of her has been buried with him” (Kroll 1). Plath does not feel complete again until she meets someone to replace the hole in her heart that her father left, which was Ted Hughes. Once she met Hughes, they inspired each other’s poetry and success. When Plath became pregnant with a child, her creativity was stimulated and she was put in touch with her deepest resources (Kroll 1).

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