Sylvia Likens

Sylvia Plath is an American poet from the 50s and early 60s. Her work is very well known all over the world and she is loved by fans and critics alike. Plath was born in 1932. In her early life, her German immigrant father was always sick but would not seek treatment. Eventually, he was diagnosed with diabetes but it was too late. He died of complications during an amputation of his foot. As a Unitarian Christian, Plath lost faith after her father’s death and frequently questioned her religion.…

last and wrapped myself in one of the big, soft white hotel bath towels I felt pure and sweet as a new baby” (Plath 49). The aforementioned “purity” is attributed to transformation, the washing away of the dirt as she descends into a cleaner self. Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar morphs this idea of sanity and purity twisting it to make us all question if a glass bell jar is looming over our heads. The protagonist of the story unveils the demented and deceitful side of society, showing how cruel the…

A Brief Biography on Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath was one of the few twentieth century poets that had the ability to create verisimilitude in a way that her audience could understand exactly what she was feeling, thinking, and experiencing during the time she was writing her works. Due to the fact that her writing tended to be dark and depressing, focusing mainly on death, alienation, and self-destruction it can be assumed that Plath had a very negative attitude and perspective towards life, which…

someone want to communicate with spirits? In Sylvia Plath’s case, to connect with her dead father and ultimately with herself. Sylvia wrote the poem, Ouija, after getting involved with dark magic through her husband. In the end, dark magic is what killed her, although her death is viewed as suicide. She was once innocent but then dark spirits and her husband changed her. Darkness was what Sylvia sought and due to that, she found it, but darkness was near Sylvia even before her marriage. Born…

While reading the poem, one can perceive that Mrs. Plath is blossoming from a child into an adult. Symbolism plays a vital role in order to perceive her aging process. In the first stanza, it mentions a black shoe that she lives in. One can observe and compare this to the children’s nursery rhyme, “There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe”. Another example of her childhood within stanza one is in line five when she says, “Achoo”. Most adults would say sneeze, but to a child, it is acceptable…

produced from things like stress, trauma, abuse, and alcohol or drug use. People react differently depending on the type of illness and how it was caused. They might hurt themselves or others. Eric Leuschner states “In many ways, the primary theme of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar is that of illness. Over the course of The Bell Jar the main character, Esther Greenwood, changes dramatically as she descends into madness and receives treatment for recovery. In the beginning of this novel Esther…

instead sticking with some throughout their entire adulthood, leaving those to choose to act upon it, some through writing. The Bell Jar and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest are two novels written with the theme of madness. The Bell Jar is written by Sylvia Plath, a woman with a female protagonist. Ken Kesey, a man, wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, with…

Pressure on Women in the 1950s Can Lead to Depression In the Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath the nineteen-year-old college student, Esther, wins guest editorship at a fashion magazine called Ladies’ Day. Although she seems to be living her dreams in New York, her plans unexpectedly change. Plath uses the magazine, relationships with men, friends, marriage, and her mother to illustrate that social pressure on women in the 1950s could lead to depression. Plath shows how Esther’s job at Ladies’ Day, the…

“Everything people did seemed so silly, because they only died in the end” (Plath 105). Sylvia Plath was a very talented writer who, even at a young age, wrote poems involving the sorrows of people’s lives. She based many of her writings on people and events from her own life. As seen in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and her other works, Plath uses people, such as her father, and events, like her mental breakdown, that occurred in her life during the mid 1900s to create her own confessional style…

Sylvia Plath has written many poems that reflect on the horrid Holocaust era, and many people wonder why she chose to put these references in her poems. Her father, Otto Plath, associated himself with the Nazis throughout the Holocaust time period, and she may be referring to this throughout these poems. These poems also reflect the personal struggles of her life. More specifically, Plath’s poem “Daddy” asserts the influences that her personal struggles and her use of vivid Holocaust images have…