Sylvia Plath Research Paper

Sylvia Plath “I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.” These are the words of Sylvia Plath reflecting not only her poetry and writing style, but moods, history, and life. She rose to fame after WWII for her poetry and suicide. Her startling poems focus on reflection and often have a depressing tone. [In conclusion,] Sylvia´s poetry was excellent, creative, and dark, influenced by her past. Plath was born on October 27, 1932 in Boston, MA. Her mother, Aurelia Schober, was studying at Boston University. Otto Plath, her father, was the professeur. He taught German and biology, with a special interest on bees. When Sylvia was 8, her father died of diabetes that could have been prevented. Therefore later on in her poetry, she writes about the guilt and how Sylvia felt like she killed him. As a student, Sylvia strived to succeed. Early on, she published poems and was a wonderful student at school.

Being from the confessional movement, death, misery, bees, a woman 's place, and her father all are recurring topics. Her bee poems all have the underlying tone of self hate and erosion, but the more literal analysis would be linked to her father. He raised bees, and so did she in her younger years. The stem of all these influences is her father. His death, her feelings of regret, and his authoritative background, which added to her lack of freedom is seen in most of her poetry. For example, her poem Daddy she references nazis and her german ancestry. Similarly, her novel The Bell Jar explores her search for freedom in a male- dominated world. On another topic, no other authors seem to have influenced Plath. Alvarez explains, ¨the very source of [Plath 's] creative energy was, it turned out, her self-destructiveness¨(3). In summation, many of these influences would later lead to her