Sylvia Plath effect

but were extremely limited in many aspects of their lives. In the late nineteen-fifties, women were pressured into conforming to specific criteria which corresponded to their roles as members of the female gender. Sylvia Plath discusses such roles throughout her literary works. In Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar, she employs imagistic motifs in order to confront the issues that…

Intro: (radio station mix effect) Radio host: Your listening to Poetry radio station, coming to you live every Monday night from 5 with new, music and discussions. First up we have Hayley to talk burning poetry. Hayley: Hey guys and welcome to burning poetry, where poetry is the bonfire of discussion. Tonight’s episode is “shackled” all about depression and mental illness. Although not always easily detected or obvious, mental illness is alive and can have devastating effects on sufferers. The…

“Ariel” Sylvia Plath’s Ariel is one of the most renowned collections of poetry from the twentieth century. These poems were written during the last years of Plath’s life before she committed suicide and gives us a unique insight into the inner workings of her mind. Her estranged husband and fellow poet, Ted Hughes, published Ariel in 1965 after Plath’s suicide. In these poems Plath transcends to become her true self; the tone is cool, amused, bitter, and unnervingly charming. This collection is…

deteriorate in their life. In The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Esther Greenwood’s mental illness is sparked by her father’s absence, her attempt to fit into society’s expectations, and her rejection towards forming intimate relationships. Esther’s initial spark to her depression is caused by her father’s absence from her life at such a young age. At the start of the novel, Esther comes to a realization that she “was only purely happy until I was nine years old” (Plath 75). This was the age that…

Mental illness was a seldom talked about topic in the 1960s when Sylvia Plath penned The Bell Jar. In the essence of her book Plath shows the already present gap between someone's mind and their body and how depression, or any mental illness, can widen the space even further. Symbolism pertaining to the gap is described when main character Esther Greenwood uses objects and metaphors as representations of her depression. The story follows Esther from the onset of her illness all the way to her…

patriarchal society in which the main character lives.” (CITE) Moreover, even though the novel was written before the insurgence of the feminist movement a decade later, it is well recognized as a piece of feminist literature. Knowingly or not, Sylvia Plath quickly gained fame and praising for being a voice against patriarchy. She was called “the accidental feminist” because of her constant discourse about the hardships of being a woman, and even more, a female writer. Her novel is not an…

of her: to have a husband, children, and a “happy home” (Plath 84). Other branches symbolize a combination of what society expects of her and what she expects of herself: to be a “famous poet,” a “brilliant professor,” or an “amazing editor” (Plath 84-85). Lastly, other branches reflect her innermost desires that will only please herself: to travel, have “a pack of…lovers with queer names and offbeat professions” and to be an Olympian (Plath 85). Esther feels torn between which life she wants to…

simply closing our eyes could free us from suffering. Sylvia Plath in “Mad Girl’s Love Song,” illustrates just this desire. With a dark, depressing tone and vivid descriptions, the speaker expresses the suffering that lost love can bring. As a result, she chooses to believe that all her love and pain may just be a figment of her imagination. Despite her longing to forget him, the pain of unfulfilled love forces her to keep him present. Sylvia Plath 's "Mad Girl 's Love Song" examines the…

Idea: Grief is soul destroying Poems: Sylvia Plath's Mirror and W. H Auden's Stop all the Clocks Although the poems 'Mirror' by Sylvia Plath and 'Stop all the Clocks' by W. H Auden reflect different experiences of grief, they both convey that its repercussions are devastating. Plath's extended metaphor focuses on the pain of aging, whereas Auden's elegy explores the grief of the physical loss of a loved one. The idea of overwhelming grief is evident in the beginning stanza of Stop all the…

It’s easy to blame crazy, as if crazy could aim a gun or slit a throat. If being poetically misunderstood deems her as crazy and that justifies her suicide in the eyes of society, than have that be so. In the case of Silvia Plath her death was not because of her psych but because of her husband, the medical practices, and the writing standards of her generation. Silvia’s husband was an accomplice in her death, he played a major part as to why she had killed herself. One can conclude that Silvia…