This paper examines the life and work of Sylvia Plath (1932–1963), one of America's most celebrated twentieth-century poets. Drawing on her poetry, her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, and critical and biographical sources, the paper traces Plath's childhood loss of her father, her academic achievements, her marriage to Ted Hughes, and her recurring bouts of depression and suicide attempts. Close readings of poems such as "Lady Lazarus" and "Daddy" illuminate how Plath transformed personal anguish into artistically powerful verse. The paper concludes by reflecting on the extraordinary body of work Plath produced before her death at age 30 and the tragic personal circumstances that both fueled and ultimately cut short her creative output.
The paper demonstrates the technique of using close reading to support biographical argument. Rather than simply asserting that Plath's poetry was autobiographical, the writer quotes specific stanzas from "Lady Lazarus" and "Daddy" and then explains how those lines reflect documented events in Plath's life — such as her suicide attempt at age 20 — creating a tight feedback loop between textual evidence and interpretive claim.
The paper opens with a biographical overview and immediately anchors it in poetic quotation. It then moves from Plath's romanticization of suicide, to her childhood and family dynamics, to a focused reading of "Daddy," and finally to her academic and professional life before closing with a brief reflective conclusion. This roughly chronological-yet-thematic structure keeps biographical facts and literary analysis in productive dialogue throughout.
One of America's best-known twentieth-century poets, Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) lived an artistically productive but tragic life, and committed suicide in 1963 while separated from her husband, the British poet Ted Hughes. Before her death at age 30, Plath had suffered a bout of severe depression for several months, likely the result of her separation from Hughes and her strong suspicion of his adultery with the English poet Assia Wevill ("Sylvia Plath"; "Sylvia Plath, 1932-1963" 2). Plath had also made several previous suicide attempts, beginning at age 20, or perhaps even earlier, always precipitated by spells of depression and debilitating self-doubt that dogged the poet from early adolescence onward (Neurotic Poets, Sylvia Plath 6–7).
As Plath wrote in her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, published in January 1963 — less than a month before her suicide — describing a suicide attempt by her main character Esther Greenwood:
It would take two motions. One wrist, then the other wrist. Three motions, if you counted changing the razor from hand to hand. Then I would step into the tub and lie down. (165)
According to a posthumously produced video biography of Plath, numerous critics and biographers have suggested that she tended to romanticize the idea of suicide, both in her writing and in her own life ("Sylvia Plath"). As Clarissa Roche, an American friend of the poet living near her in London at the time, recalls in that video biography: "Sylvia loved to show her wrists. She spoke of 'having a go' at suicide, like someone 'has a go' at tournament tennis" ("Sylvia Plath").
One of Plath's better-known poems, "Lady Lazarus," from her posthumously published Ariel collection (1965), describes a female speaker defiantly rising, like Lazarus, from each of several suicide attempts:
Dying
Is an art, like everything else
I do it exceptionally well
I do it so it feels like hell
I do it so it feels real
I guess you'd say I have a call
Another well-known Plath poem, "Daddy," also from the 1965 Ariel collection, alludes to the speaker's suicide attempt at age 20 — the same age at which Plath herself had her first nervous breakdown and subsequently made her first documented suicide attempt — based on a wish to rejoin her deceased father in death:
I was ten when they buried you
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do
But they pulled me out of the sack
And they stuck me together with glue (57–62)
Sylvia Plath was born in 1932 to Otto Plath, a Polish immigrant to the United States of German background, and Aurelia Shober Plath, a first-generation American whose parents had come from Austria (Neurotic Poets 1). Sylvia's beloved father, Otto, died of complications in 1940, leaving the eight-year-old Sylvia deeply depressed, and may have been a catalyst for the poet's lifelong struggles with depression ("Sylvia Plath"). The video biography also describes Aurelia Plath as excessively pushy and ambitious for her brilliant daughter's academic success — a kind of academic "stage mother" — and portrays Otto Plath as having been, before his death, the parent to whom Sylvia had been much closer ("Sylvia Plath").
Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. New York: Harper and Row, 1971.
---. "Daddy." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 4th Compact Ed. New York: Longman, 2005. 830.
---. "Lady Lazarus." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 4th Compact Ed. New York: Longman, 2005. 830.
"Sylvia Plath." Neurotic Poets. 1 Dec. 2004. <http://www.neuroticpoets.com/plath/>.
"Sylvia Plath, 1932-1963." Sylvia Plath. 30 Nov. 2004. <
"Sylvia Plath." Voices and Visions. Prog. 3. Prod. New York Center for Visual History. Videocassette. Annenberg/CPB Collection, 1980s.
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