Introduction
Sylvia Plath is one of the most admired and dynamic poet of the 20th Century. She was mostly known for her book the Bell jar which was a collection of poems. Her poetry represented a self loathing and disturbing stance that could probably have been prompted by the tough life she had led as a child and under the care of her authoritarian father. According to Biography.com (n.p), her poetry was “highly acclaimed” due to its “confessional style,” linking her to other confessional poets like Anne Sexton and Robert Lowell. This paper should present facts about Sylvia Plath’s early life, career and late life and elaborate on three of her most famous poems namely “Daddy”, “Lady Lazarus” and “Tulips” and how they relate to her life. The thesis for this paper is, therefore, as follows.
Thesis Statement
This paper presents facts about Sylvia Plath’s early life, career and late life while exploring three of her most famous poems namely “Daddy”, “Lady Lazarus” and “Tulips” and how they relate to her life.
- EARLY LIFE
- Birth
Sylvia Plath was born on 27th October 1932 in Boston Massachusetts (Biography.com, n.p.). Her Sylvia Plath began writing at a tender age. She was a gifted yet troubled poet. Like most other writers in their young age, she started by keeping a journal and was greatly inspired while sitting at the seaside to write her poetry.
- Family
Sylvia Plath’s father, Otto Plath, was a German immigrant band college professor. Her mother, a former student of Otto Plath, was named Aurelia Schober. When Sylvia was eight years old, her father died. This caused a great disruption in her life and inspired some of the most vivid poems that she wrote in her young age. Her poem “Daddy” tells of her turbulent relationship with her father who was a strict authoritarian. Due to financial constraints, the Plath family moved to Wellesley, Massachusetts. Her mother took up teaching advanced secretarial studies at the University of Boston.
- Childhood
At her young age she experimented with Villanelle as well as other forms of poetry (Biography.com, n.p.). She was “stimulated” by writers such as James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Feodor Dostoevski, Anne Sexton, Theodore Roethke, Emily Dickinson, Henry James and Virginia Woolf. During this time, Sylvia was in her teens. She was winning many awards for poetry and stories which were published in national magazines. She was offered a scholarship to Smith College where she continued to perform well, winning a fiction contest in the magazine “Mademoiselle” in one of the years. The following summer she garnered the guest editorship of the same prestigious magazine. During her undergraduate studies, Plath started to suffer from severe depression. In a journal entry dated 20th June 1958, she details how her bipolar disorder had began to affect her life negatively. Bipolar disorder or manic depression is a severe illness for which no effective medication was available during that time. At nineteen years of age (in 1958), Sylvia Plath attempted suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. However, she survived after receiving electro-shock therapy. Plath returned to Smith College for her degree and earned a Fulbright grant to further her studies at Cambridge University, England. While at Cambridge, she met Ted Hughes.
- LITERARY CAREER: HER POETRY
- “Daddy”
According to Butscher (20), few critics dispute over the value of the content in Plath’s poems. Its legacy is filled with cynicism, ego-absorption and a fascination with suicide. “Daddy” is Sylvia Plath’s most-read poem. This poem has elicited varied and distinct reactions. From feminist praise of the unchecked rage directed towards male dominance to its employment of Holocaust imagery, this poem is hugely significant in history.
“Lady Lazarus”
“Lady Lazarus” is a “complex, dark and vitriolic poem which was originally published in the collection known as Ariel” (Berman 50). It was produced during Plath’s most prolific and creative period. This is why it is regarded as one of Plath’s most acclaimed poems. This poem has elicited a lot of literary criticism. The poem is commonly interpreted as an illustration of Plath’s suicide attempt and unwarranted impulses.
“Tulips”
“Tulips” is a poem written by Plath in first-person. It is about a woman recovering from an operation in a hotel. The woman notes how her hospital room feels like “winter” and resembles snow and that the tulips that have just arrived are “too excitable” for such whiteness (Kirk 85). This poem is written by Plath as she remembers a bouquet of tulips that she had received while recovering in hospital from an appendectomy. The glare and vividness of the tulips anger her and she insists to be left alone in the solitude and quiet that her room offers.
- CRITICAL REVIEW
- Katie Roiphe: “Daddy”
Roiphe (n.p.) states that “Daddy” is viewed as one of the best forms of confessional poetry. For some, it is too intense. This is because it invokes memories of the suffering experienced by the Jews during the Holocaust. Its vitriolic tone makes it an uncomfortable read for some. This poem is highly contradictory. This opens it up to many interpretations. The structure of the poem is contradictory as its meaning. For example, the rhyme scheme and organization uses a nursery rhyme of sorts. It uses hard sounds, repeated rhymes and short lines. This depicts her as a childish figure at the mercy of her authoritarian father. It further serves to invoke sympathy and emotion in the reader.
- Ronald Hayman: “Lady Lazarus”
The tone of this poem borders on scathing and menacing, drawing immense attention because of its heavy use of Holocaust imagery. This gives it a striking similarity to “Daddy”. The title of this poem is a deliberate allusion to Lazarus of the Biblical context who was raised from the dead by Jesus. The poem is a depiction of Plath’s suicide attempt. She represents the failed suicide attempt as a failure and depicts dying as an art. The poem further states that she performs the art of dying “exceptionally well”. Perfection, according to the poem, is achieved if she manages to escape her body.
In her poem “Lady Lazarus”, Plath includes a spectator to both of her suicide attempts. This is because she views her death as an art or performance which should be watched by an audience. However, she proceeds to admonish her spectators by comparing them to the Germans who stood and watched as Jews were condemned to concentration camps. Additionally, when she “resurrects (recovers from her first suicide attempt), the crowd of spectators is viewed as more of a burden than an encouragement resenting their presence at her point of resurrection (Kirk, 100).
According to Roiphe, Katie (n.p.), The poem also has a lot of value when viewed from a feminist point of view. In a patriarchal society, Plath struggles for autonomy. The poem shows how male domination usurps the creativity of Plath. However, her rebirth (resurrection/ recovery from the failed suicide attempt) is seen as a victory against the male domination and, therefore, a victory for other feminists as well. As if often the case with most of her poems, the holocaust imagery used in “Lady Lazarus” has drawn the attention of readers and critics alike. Her self description as a “Nazi Lampshade” and “Jew Linen” depicts the heavy influences that social and political events have on this poem and on her life when she was writing it.
- Connie Ann Kirk: “Tulips”
According to Kirk (85), the main tension represented in the poem is the persona’s desire for death’s simplicity and the tulip’s embrace of life. Therefore, the poem represents a choice to embrace death or return to life painfully. She prefers the state of sterility in the hospital room to the pains and complications of living. She gives a disturbing image of a father and child which to her is an annoying encouragement towards life. The ending of the poem is seen as a temporary return to health. However, the ending may also be interpreted as a portrayal of the minds capacity to create hyperboles that torture itself. The irony which is central to this poem is that the tulips save her through torturing her to confront the realities that she wished to ignore in favor of the more simple death.
- LATER LIFE
- Marriage
Sylvia Plath got married to Ted Hughes in 1956. Her marriage ended in 1962 leaving Plath with two children to take care of. In some of her poems, she describes her marriage as being a turbulent one. This is because her husband had cheated on her with another woman known as Assia. This affair is illustrated in some of Ted Hughes’s poems (Hayman, 100).
- Published works
During her life, Plath published two major works. These are The Bell Jar and The Colossus, a poetry volume that included most of her poetry. These works received warm reviews. In addition, Plath produced her last major poetry work which consisted of the poems featured in the collection, Ariel. According to Hayman (45) and other poets who reviewed her work, death for her was preeminent. They agree that the source of Sylvia Plath’s creativity was her self-destructiveness. Her poetry is autobiographical in a very intense sense. It explores her failed marriage with Ted Hughes, unresolved issues with her parents and her mental anguish.
- Death
Sylvia Plath committed suicide through inhalation of kitchen stove gas on 11 February 1963. Before committing suicide, Plath had received prescriptions for anti-depressants from her physician, Dr. John Horder. Some of her friends claim that the anti-depressants may have aggravated her problems further. Before she died,Plath had already acquired a following. She is regarded as one of the most highly celebrated and controversial poet.
- ANALYSIS OF THE POEM “DADDY”
- Interpretation of plot
The poem explores Plath’s journey in life with her authoritarian father. She casts herself as the victim and her father as several figures like the Nazi, the devil, a figure of her husband and as a vampire. The final words of the poem give a triumphant feel and tone. It is not clear whether Plath derives this triumph from the belief that the ranting and raving in the poem gets to her father somehow or whether she is finally “through” with him. This poem is highly contradictory. This opens it up to many interpretations. The structure of the poem is contradictory as its meaning. For example, the rhyme scheme and organization uses a nursery rhyme of sorts. It uses hard sounds, repeated rhymes and short lines. This depicts her as a childish figure at the mercy of her authoritarian father. It further serves to invoke sympathy and emotion in the reader. The relationship between Plath and her father is illustrated through the name she uses to refer to him- “Daddy”. Her childish cadence and use of “oo” sounds also give her a childish figure. Some poets argue that the inconsistent and childish rhyme offer a protective quality and not an innocent one. This is because it is the writer’s way of charming and holding off evil spirits.
- Figurative Language
There are several symbols, images and wordplays that show that “Daddy” captures many themes and is more than just Sylvia Plath’s reaction to the ill-treatment by her authoritarian father. First, the speaker states that her father is like a Nazi. Her father was a German but that is not the only thing that makes the speaker relate him to a Nazi. The term “Nazi” is used to show that the speaker feels like a victim. However, she uses subtle wordplay and imagery to depict her father as a Nazi. For example at lines 29-35, the speaker uses a metaphor of the train engine to mean the German language. Additionally, the metaphor of a vampire is used in relation to her father and her husband. Her hatred for these men lives on even in their deaths. This implies that she views them as living horrors that become undead horrors.
- Theme
The poem “Daddy” is a poem depicting the individual trapped between her personality and that of society (Roiphe n.p.). Plath’s intention in the poem is to hold accountable some patriarchal figures such as her father, a vampire, Nazis and her husband for all of history’s horrors. The figure represented by “Daddy” in the poem is not only her father but represents socio-political aspects in society. These aspects include the holocaust and the Second World War. Even though Plath was a German, her obsession for Jewish history and heritage is illustrated through this poem. “Daddy” leaves most of its readers moved by Plath’s talent and her unabashed account of her personal history and the historical traumas she experience in her lifetime.
- MY IMPRESSIONS
- On the research
Sylvia Plath is undoubtedly a great poet. Her work is highly acclaimed and many poets have studied her work extensively to try and decipher some of the themes and messages that are packer therein. This research sheds light on some of her works and provides a stepping stone towards further inspection of her work.
- Why I chose the author
I chose Sylvia Plath because her body of work lends itself to extensive interpretations and provides room for research. This is because it captures many themes which are creatively weaved together. Sylvia Plath’s confessional style and unpretentious account of her life and the issues that she faced in her life attracted me to investigate her work. Additionally, her obsession with death and claims that it is easier than life as captured in her poem “Lady Lazarus” has elicited much debate from theorists as an interesting topic.
- How I chose the research
I chose the book “Sylvia Plath: a biography” by Connie Ann Kirk and the website “Biography.com” because they give a clear and detailed account of Sylvia Plath’s life from brth to her second suicide attempt which led to her death. The “death and life of Sylvia Plath” by Ronald Hayman; “Sylvia Plath, method and madness” by Edward Butscher and “Surviving literary suicide” by Jeffrey Berman have been acclaimed by critics as books that provide a clear insight into Sylvia Plath’s battle with the self and how this battle is reflected in her work.
Works cited
Berman, Jeffrey. Surviving literary suicide. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999. Print.
Biography.com. "Sylvia Plath Biography - Facts, Birthday, Life Story - Biography.com ." Famous Biographies & TV Shows - Biography.com . Version 1. Biography.com, 1 Jan. 2010. Web. 30 Apr. 2013.
Butscher, Edward. Sylvia Plath, method and madness. New York: Seabury Press, 1976. Print.
Hayman, Ronald. The death and life of Sylvia Plath. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Pub. Group, 1991. Print.
Kirk, Connie Ann. Sylvia Plath: a biography. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004. Print.
Roiphe, Katie. "Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy” is about her mother. - Slate Magazine." Politics, Business, Technology, and the Arts - Slate Magazine. Version 1. Katie Roiphe, 11 Feb. 2013. Web. 30 Apr. 2013.
