The Life and
Death of Sylvia Plath
This source, although informal at points and clearly written by an
amateur Plath enthusiast, is useful in giving a brief overview of some of the
key moments in Plath’s life
Much of the interest in Sylvia Plath
and her literary works has been sparked by the events
that led her to taking her life so tragically and unexpectedly in the early
months of 1963. By coming to understand her life and its tragic end, a reader
of her work can come to better understanding of the intense imagery and
emotions that she pours into both her poetry and fiction. (Kutztown 2)
Plath Plath
was born on the 27th of October in Boston,
Massachusetts to parents of
German and Austrian decent. Her father, Otto Emil Plath, an etymologist and
author of a treatise on bumblebees, was a professor of biology and German at Boston University.
He met Aurelia Schober (Plath) in 1929 while she was
working on her Masters degree in English and German. Plath had one younger
brother named Warren
who was born on the 27th of April 1935. During much of her childhood, Plath
spent time on the North Atlantic coast near Boston. Her love for the sea, as well as, her
parents’ backgrounds provides much if the imagery for her poetry. (Kutztown 4)
Around 1936, the family moved to Winthrop, Massachusetts.
Shortly after, her father's health began to fail; however, believing that he
had lung cancer he refused to receive treatment. During her father's illness,
his need for rest left time for Plath and her brother to explore and play by
the ocean. In 1940, Otto Plath died from gangrene in his leg resulting from an
untreated case of diabetes mellitus. (Norton 2607) The death of her father
marked an important point in Plath’s life; the family moved away from the sea
to Wellesley, Massachusetts. Being left alone with two
children, Aurelia Plath was faced with the dilemma of having to support her
family; she moved in with her parents and accepted a position in designing and
teaching a course in medical secretarial procedures at Boston University.
Throughout her childhood and
adolescence, Plath proved to be a bright young woman. Before attending Smith College
on scholarship, she had already accomplished a series of literary achievements.
In August of 1950, she had her first story, ‘And Summer Will not Come Again’ published in Seventeen magazine, as well as, a poem,
"Ode on a Bitten Plum" which appeared in the November issue.
(Kutztown 5) Once at Smith, her literary success continued to soar as she won
several awards and recognition. However, being very much a woman of the 1950's,
Plath's success bred many problems. She was plagued with thoughts that she
needed to marry and have children in order to be a complete woman. She
constantly battled over the direction her life should follow. The battles
between career vs. marriage and sexuality vs. chastity in addition to her
rising depression finally led to her breakdown shortly after serving as
honorary College Editor for Mademoiselle magazine.
(Heath 2405) Her breakdown marks the first of her suicide attempts. In August
of 1953, after being rejected from a summer writing course at Harvard as well
as feeling a wave of failure and depression, she left her home leaving a note
that she was going for a walk. However, Plath instead crawls under the porch
space after taking several sleeping pills. (Kutztown 6) It was three days later
before she was discovered and rushed to the hospital, resulting in her spending
several months under psychiatric care before returning to Smith and graduating
summa cum laude and receiving a Fullbright
Scholarship to obtain her MA at Cambridge
University.
Once at Cambridge, the next several years marked a
period of maturation and great achievement. She joined the university's
Dramatic Society, modeled and wrote for the Cambridge newspaper, the Varsity, vacationed in France and
maintained an active life. It was in March of 1956 that she Ted Hughes, who was
later to become the Poet Laureate of England. After an intense love affair,
they married the following June and spent the summer honeymooning in Spain. From the
start, their relationship has been described as extremely wild and intense. In
a letter to her mother Plath tells her about their first meeting; "When he
kissed my neck I bit him and hard on the cheek and when we came out of the room
he had blood running down his face." (Sac.Bee 2)
To outsiders, her marriage must have
appeared to be almost perfect: it combined romance and two poets starting out
their lives and careers together. After returning to Cambridge in the fall, as Plath continued her
studies, Hughes secured a teaching position at a nearby boy's school.
Dedicating herself to Hughes, she became both his typist and agent, while still
managing to find time to do her own writing. In March of 1957, Ted's "The
Hawk in the Rain" won the New York Poetry Center
Award and was published in both America
and England; resulting in
the couple returning to Massachusetts.
While Ted landed a position teaching in Amherst
at the University of Massachusetts, Plath began teaching at Smith College.
However, both poets found trying to teach and write at the same time
frustrating. A year later, they both decided to leave their positions and
survive on the grants, prizes, and earnings from writing. However, to help make
ends meet, Plath took on part time positions at a nearby hospital and
psychiatric ward.
In February of 1959, Plath decided
to audit Robert Lowell’s writing class at Boston University,
where she met and became good friends with two other young poets, Anne Sexton
and George Starbuck. This class and these friendships were significant
because through them Plath begins to look for criticism and acceptance of her
work from outside sources. (Heath 2406)
Later on that summer after several
attempts to become pregnant, Plath finally learns that she will become a
mother. The couple then decide to move back to England after Ted received the
Guggenheim grant to write for the next year. It was in March of 1960, that Plath
signs her first contract with William Heinemann to have her first volume, The
Colossus and other Poems", published in November of that year.
On April 1, 1960 their daughter Freida is born. However, even though Plath accepted
motherhood with open arms, the next year became difficult for her. With the new
responsibilities of caring for a new baby, she found little time for writing.
With Ted spending most of his time at a nearby flat that he kept for seclusion
as he wrote, she was pretty much left alone to carry the burden on her own.
(Kutztown 7)
Once again Plath began to slip into
a world of failure and depression. Unable to write like she wanted, she felt
trapped with no outlet. As Ted continuously published more work, gave readings
and received several awards, Plath, herself, felt the pangs of failure as the
Colossus and other Poems failed to receive recognition and prizes. With her
health being poor, she miscarries their second child
in February of 1961. Later that spring, Plath begins to write with new hope as
she begins work on the Bell Jar after receiving the Eugene Saxton grant. She
then signs a long term contract with the New Yorker in March for her poems, in
addition Alfred Knopf arranged for her volume Colossus to be published later
that May in the States. (Hayman xvii).
In September of 1961, pregnant with
their third child, Ted and Plath return to Devon
and move into a home that is an hour’s drive from the sea in hopes that it
would help Plath's health. At their new home, they were able to establish new
writing schedules allowing Plath to have time to work on her material in the
morning while Ted spent time with Freida. It was on
January of 1962 that their son Nicholas Farr was born.
Later that June, the BBC Third
Programme accepted Plath's voice play "Three Women" and Plath was
also commissioned to edit American Poetry Now, a supplement to The Critical
Quarterly.(Hayman chron.) However, success would not
last long for Plath as she learns of Ted's infidelity with Assia
Wevill in mid 1962. In her devastation, her mother
comes to spend time with her as she tries to repair her marriage. Once again sinking into the arms of a depression that she knew so
well, Plath drove her car off a road bank following a long argument with Ted
after she finds him with Assia. By the end of
the summer their marriage had fallen apart and as Ted returned to London, Plath
commenced arrangements for a legal separation to be followed by a divorce.(
Bernard 23) Alone in Devon, Plath finds herself left alone to care for the
children on her own much like her mother when her own father died.
With her health poor and the walls
of depression closing in once more, Plath battled to find herself. Inspired by
her horse, Ariel, and the sea, she began to work furiously on her new volume of
poems ‘Ariel’. In addition, with the success of the Bell Jar, which was published
anonymously, she began to look forward to working on her new novel ‘Double Exposure’,
although this later disappeared after her death and was never recovered.
Despite her increasing success as a
writer, the odds apparently turned against her. Unable to deal with Ted's
abandonment, Plath began to slip into another of psychotic depressions. Now in
a London flat, Plath
puts the children to bed leaving milk and food by their beds. She seals their door
with towels and then goes into the kitchen, turns the gas on and places her
head in the oven. The nursemaid sent by friend and counselor
Dr. Horder to help her with the children during her
recovery found Plath dead on February 10, 1963 after having a utility worker
break the door down because she could not get in.
Plath was buried in small graveyard
outside of Heptonstall. The inscription on her
gravestone reads:
Sylvia Plath Hughes
1932 - 1963
Even among fierce
flames
The Golden lotus can
be planted.
Bibliography:
The Arts & Media Books -
"Poets in Suicide Sex Shocker…"; Time Inc.
Vol.143 No. 16, 1994.
Hayman, Ronald, The Death & Life
of Plath Plath; A Birch Lane Press Book - Carol Publishing Group, 600 Madison
Ave., New York, 10022. 1991
The Heath
Anthology of American Literature, Vol.II 3rd edition;
Houghton Mifflin Comp., Boston,
Massachusetts. 1998, pgs.
2405 - 2414
The Norton Anthology - American
Literature, short 4th edition, WW. Norton E. Company, New York. 1995, pgs.
2606 - 2615
Plath, Plath, The
Bell Jar; Harper & Row Publishing, 49 East 33rd St, New York,
10016. 1971
This source can be found at: http://www.uta.edu/english/tim/poetry/sp/the%20life%20and%20death.htm