Sylvia Plath

One of the most common literary arts that are used worldwide is poetry. It is a way of creative writing that can allow a human being to express themselves, sometimes not straightforward, however in a more abstract way. Sylvia Plath was a 20th century American poet, novelist and short story writer. (Snider) Controversy still continues to surround the events of her life and death, as well as her writing and legacy. Two poems that best demonstrate her style of confessional poetry are “Mirror” and “Daddy.” (Sewell) Sylvia Plath’s poems often illustrate or include details from her personal feelings of being oppressed for most of her life. In these two poems the important literary devices that are used are personification, imagery, allusion, and metaphor. Sylvia was born October 27, 1932 in Newton, Massachusetts to Otto Emile Plath and Aurelia Plath. She committed suicide on February 11, 1963. (Plath) Relatives and friends of Plath had major impacts on her writing. (Plath) Sylvia’s father, Otto, died in 1940 when she was only eight years old, an experience that had a significant impact on her poetry. (Plath) In some of her poems, there are obvious hints of the bitter feelings she felt for her father who refused to get treatment for his undiagnosed case of diabetes. (Snider) His strictness and death defined her poems and relationships amongst others. At the age of eleven, Plath started a journal and began publishing her poems in regional newspapers and magazines. In the June of 1956, Sylvia married Ted Hughes. They eventually had two children; Freida and Nicholas. Seven years into their marriage they separated after Sylvia learned of Ted’s infidelity. “Mirror” by Sylvia Plath is a poem about the terrible difficulty of the truth, especially the inexorable process of age and time. In this poem the mirror sets out to define itself and its function. It has no preconceptions because it is without memory or ability to reason. Most of the time it meditates on the