Preview

Research Paper On Sylvia Plath

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1372 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Research Paper On Sylvia Plath
Art Imitating Life At the age of thirty Sylvia Plath committed suicide, she was a daughter, a wife, a mother, and a poet. Sylvia Plath made a tremendous impact on the world during her short life by expressing her life through poetry. Her professional life was full of great accomplishments, yet her personal life was full of even greater tragedies. In the documentary “Voices and Vision Sylvia Plath”, Plath was asked if there were any themes that attracted her as a poet. Plath responded by stating, “I think my poems come immediately out of the sensuous and emotional experiences I’ve had…” ( ) . This leaves the reader asking whether Plath was truly able to disconnect her art from her life. In Sylvia Plath’s poem Lady Lazarus the distinction between art and reality is blurred leaving the reader questioning if there is a distinct persona in the poem or if it is simply autobiographical.
Is Sylvia Plath’s Poem Lady Lazarus autobiographical? For the answer to this question the reader must look deep into the poem itself. In the beginning lines of the poem Plath writes, “I have done it again./ One year in every ten,/ I manage it” ( ). The reader is
…show more content…
We can clearly start to see the connection between life and art blurring. The reader is lead to believe that the second suicide attempt was serious, purposely done, and possibly methodically thought out. Pearls are something that women strive for a symbolic reference to something wanted in life and can be a typical a symbol of something valuable. By comparing pearls to worms, the persona leads us to believe that this act of suicide was truly desired, and by taking picking the worms off of her they had taken her opportunity to die away. Once again the tone in the poem turns from dark to egotistical and playful. The persona mentioned that she dies exceptionally well. Who can die well, and is there a superior way to accomplish

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Sylvia Plath, an extremely influential and beloved female poet who lived in the mid-20th century, was the author of numerous poems as well as the semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar. Her work, especially that of her adult life, heavily reflects the darkness and depression that she dealt with. Plath, born in October of 1932, began writing at a very young age. Her first published work, titled simply “Poem”, was published before she had even turned ten. Plath wrote many short stories during her early years, and she even won several writing competitions. One of these was a fiction contest that earned her a position as guest editor at Mademoiselle…

    • 1079 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    The poem was a single piece from the Ariel collection, and is the best known. It is about suicide, and reincarnation is a way of its own. In a bizarre way, it seems as though Plath is comparing death to a form of art, peaking a curious widespread in this poem. Some enthusiasts draw the conclusion that because the poem Lady Lazarus was written so close to Sylvia Plath's suicide, it was left as a foreshadowing poem (Raritan). Inevitably, with the angst from her failed marriage and the weight of the world suppressing her, Plath decided that she could bear the cruel world no more. On a dreary January morning in London, Sylvia Plath took her life. She gassed herself in her small, cold kitchen and ended her bittersweet life. Misery overcame every last bit of light in her world, and blew the candle out. Marty Ascher, publisher of the unabridged journals, supports that "When you die young like Dean or Monroe or Sylvia Plath, when your life ends in disaster, then you live on in legend, and you remain forever young." There is great debate between 'deciding' if Plath was indeed a feminist or not. Does she lead a role in the feminist movement today? Being honored in living through and between two of the greatest womens' right movements could sway Plath one way more than the other. Society had then split the decision of the debate. Some believe she is the face of feminism through literature, while others see no reason for her to be labeled a…

    • 1435 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Maya Angelou was an author, actress, screenwriter, dancer and poet. But even with such a prosperous life, Angelou faced many conflicts in this book. One was getting pregnant at a very young age, and two, was being a black woman.…

    • 193 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hughes who was a poet himself was less known for his work and known more for his affairs. She was often compared to his other women, even in her death was her name still used in vain of his mistakes. Ted Hughes was sleeping with other poets, the most infamous was Assia Wevill who sadly also killed herself and the daughter she and Ted Hughes had the same way Sylvia herself ended her life. For a long time till this day Sylvia Plath is labeled as a depressed artist and Assia as the mistress. Ted Hughes tarnished two careers that women worked so hard to built. To say that Sylvia Plath’s sadness came from the affair would be ignorant to ignore the fact that Plath was battling an inner demon of mental illness almost all her life. Ted Hughes wrote in his collection called Birthday Letters. "Fame cannot be avoided. And when it comes / you will have paid for it with your happiness, / your husband and your life." As to blame her suicide on her face, the one thing she worked so hard to build was the thing to destroy her. Ted Hughes is obviously wrong and oblivious that Plath’s success was her voice, that she I believe even in her death wouldn’t want anyone or any man to speak for her, she let her literature do that for…

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Dying is an art, like everything. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I’ve a call” – Sylvia Plath. Sylvia Plath was born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts on October 27th, 1932 and died in London, United Kingdom on February 11th, 1963 at the age of 31 years old. Sylvia is well known for her astonishing poem such as “The Bell Jar” and “Daddy”. Her parents were Aurelia Schober, who was a student at Boston University and Otto Plath, who happened to be Aurelia Schober’s professor at the time (Academy of American Poets). “In 1940, when Plath was eight years old, her father died as a result of complications from diabetes. He had been a strict father, and both his authoritarian attitudes and his death drastically defined her relationships and her poems—most notably in her elegiac and infamous poem "Daddy."” (Academy of American Poets).…

    • 599 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Frida Kahlo was described as “the first woman in the history of art to address with absolute and uncompromising honesty, general and specific themes which exclusively affect women” by life-long lover, Diego Rivera. As a Mexican female artist in the 20th century, Frida’s themes expressed in her artworks were considered highly explicit at the time. She was fine artist who used autobiographical through her extensive output of self-portraits. They are evidence of her need for self-expression and her exploration of identity. She overcame many difficult events including polio, long recovery from a serious car accident, two failed marriages, and several miscarriages some having a direct influence on her art. She used these experiences, combined with Mexican and Native American cultural and stylistic influences, to create highly personal paintings. Kahlo used personal symbolism mixed with Surrealism to express her suffering and anguish through her work. A viewer might classify her paintings as Surrealism, but she considered her art to be realistic.…

    • 1623 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Steven Gould Axelrod is an expert in nineteenth and twentieth-century American poetry, and his book “Sylvia Plath: The Wound and the Cure of Words” was published in 1990. Sylvia Plath was an American poet, born in 1932, and died in 1963 when she committed suicide. I totally agreed with Steven Gould Axelrod’s idea in this book, especially when he said that the poem “Daddy,” Sylvia’s most famous poem – is dramatic and allegorical. At the beginning of the book, Axelrod mostly focused on Sylvia’s life and how “Daddy” was brought into the world, then in the middle of the book, he compared how Sylvia described her father in her two poets, “Daddy” and “The Colossus,” and at the end, he continued to compare the figure “I” in “Daddy” and “The Colossus,” Sylvia herself identity.…

    • 769 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Background: Maya Angelou was born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, in her early days her parents split they got A divorce. Angelou experienced firsthand racial prejudices and discrimination in Arkansas. She also was raped at the age of seven, by her mother’s boyfriend Angelou moved to San Francisco, California, where she won a scholarship to study dance and acting at the California Labor School. Also during this time, Angelou became the first black female cable car conductor a job she kept to support her and her only son. As her life went on Maya became an actor, She landed a role in a production called of “Porgy and Bess”, later appearing in the off-Broadway production “Calypso Heat Wave” and releasing her first album, Miss Calypso also in 1957.…

    • 307 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Famous painter Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907. Her name on her birth certificate is Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon. Her parents are Guillermo Kahlo and MAtilde Calderón y González. She was born and raised in her parents house known as La Casa Azul (the blue house) located in Coyoacan, a small town in Mexico City.…

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Sylvia Plath

    • 1525 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Sylvia Plath poetry is unique because of her use of language and the perspective and themes she explores, creating powerful images and original metaphorical ideas to evoke a strong climax of feelings which express the struggles she experienced in her own personal life. Her poems ‘Lady Lazarus’ and ‘Daddy’ are confessional poems that use contemporary form and respectively a childlike and mocking tone to convey the persona’s mixed sense of emotions . Plath’s poetry utilises unique language to express her anger, hope, desire and disappointment. There is a constant suicidal motif in her poems revealing her personal issues and problems which are linked to male domination in the patriarchal society she resided in. It is unusual that Plath’s poetry is written in a strong female perspective contrary to the passive domesticity which women were meant to abide by in her 1950’s and 1960’s context.…

    • 1525 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Sylvia Plath Research Paper

    • 4554 Words
    • 19 Pages

    Plath 's poetry is full of symbols and allusions cryptic to those unfamiliar with her biography, so it is necessary to begin any analysis of her work with a brief account of her life. Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932 near Boston and for much of her childhood lived near the sea, which finds its way into many of her poetic images (Barnard 14). Her father, Otto Emil Plath, was an immigrant from Germany and her mother, Aurelia Schober, a second generation Austrian American (Barnard 13). Allusions to her German heritage and to World War Two era Europe abound in her work.…

    • 4554 Words
    • 19 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Born in Coyocoán, Mexico City, Mexico, on July 6, 1907. By the name of Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón as stated on her birth certificate (Frida Kahlo Biography, 2017). Considerate one of Mexico’s greatest artists, Frida Kahlo painted over one-hundred and forty-three works of arts were fifty-five are self-portraits. Through their paints many artists express their ideas and feeling and Frida was not the exception.…

    • 928 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Plath began to stress about her teaching career. Her teachers that she admired as a student were not as pleasant as colleagues. She had extreme paranoia about her ability to teach but no one at the school could sense what was happening to Plath. Sylvia and Ted made a decision to leave the academics alone and continue writing. The year of 1958 was very stressful on Sylvia and Ted’s relationship. Ted felt she was complaining too much and she felt he showed poor manners. One day, Sylvia confronted Ted and caught him spending time with a young girl. Days after, they got into a physical fight where Sylvia was hit and Ted had markings on his face.…

    • 126 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    If I were fortunate enough to have the chance to travel anywhere with anyone, I would choose Frida Kahlo. It would be an incredible opportunity to travel all over southern Europe with her, staying mostly in Spain, France and Italy. Frida Kahlo was a significant female artist during the early twentieth century and remains one of the most influential artists and feminist icons of all time.…

    • 403 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There has been a war raging for thousands of years, a silent war, the war within ourselves. Depression is a serious issue, it has taken thousands of lives. Depression has caused men to soar to greatest heights just as it has crippled others. Some of the most famous people in history have secretly battled with depression, which has made them do extraordinary things. Two such people with amazing talents were Sylvia Plath and Kurt Cobain. Sylvia Plath was a great author who wrote various poems, while Kurt Cobain was a talented musician that wrote many songs in a poetic style. One of Sylvia Plath’s greatest works was a poem named “Daddy”, most scholars agree this poem was actually an autobiography of her own battle with depression. Kurt Cobain’s autobiographical song “Something In The Way” was also a reflection of his battle with depression. Both Cobain and Plath were prisoners of themselves, and their great works demonstrate how much depression had a grip on them and how their art indicates something was in the way of their becoming happy with themselves.…

    • 850 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays