Sylvia Plath

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Sylvia Plath
E X P O S E D

• By Lizzy Taistra, Kayla Ellmann, and Cassie
  Derrick

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Background

• Born in 1932 in Massachusetts
• Published first poem at age 8
• Always a star student
• Scholarship to Smith College
• Suffered from Bipolar Disorder
• Attempted suicide
• Married to Ted Hughes in 1956
• Two children-Frieda and Nicholas
• Successful Suicide in 1963 age 30

Sylvia and her two children Frieda and Nicholas
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Similarities Between Life and Poetry

• Fathers death- Daddy
• Parents backgrounds (German and Austrian decent
• Attempted suicide in college
• Dad was an expert on bees- The Bee Keepers
  Daughter
• Attempted suicide- book The Bell Jar
• Miscarriage- Childless Woman
• Struggled Marriage
• Ariel- inspired by her horse Ariel and her love
  for the sea
• Struggled financially and sick children
• 1962-Towards the end of her life she wrote her
  best and most emotional and recognized poetry

Ted and Sylvia on their honeymoon
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Plath's Patterns

• -Inconsistent end rhyming- Analyzes different
  situations in life by viewpoints of different
  people, sometimes even by material objects/ideas
  (personification)(ex "Mushrooms" "our toes,
  our noses take hold on the loam acquire the
  air")-Situations in each poem are over a long
  period of time (ex Mirror) and the viewpoint
  changes throughout-Uses a lot of colors to
  describe feelings and certain situations. She
  changes them as the feelings begin to
  change.-Also uses color to set the mood (ex
  black for darkness)-Often uses dark or even
  harsh descriptions of heavy feelings-has an
  obsession with death-Her poetry is like looking
  into a magnified glass she sees every detail as
  it is and examines it closely and
  carefully("Tulips"" the tulips are too red",
  "Mushrooms" she examines mushrooms which someone
  would normally never look at because they are
  such simple creatures which she gives such
  powerful and outspoken personalities)-Picks
  objects that no one would think of (RANDOM
  OBJECTS) and describes them as if they were
  common (?). (Random objects and beings that we
  don't notice often.)-Seems to go off on
  tangents. (Off task)

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Themes and Motifs

• Love
• Hate
• Death, Hospitals
• Family
• Surroundings
• Marriage

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Literary Criticism

• Dark and negative
• Tangents
• Confessional
• Limitless
• Impressive imagery
• Language

Dying is an art, like everything else. 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
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Literary Criticism

• Eleanor Ross Taylor Self-consciously womanly,
  yet there is a curious underlying rejection of
  being a woman.
• Thomas Blackburn Her imagery tends to get out
  of hand becomes not a single experience but a
  series of intriguing literary gems.
• Robert Lowell Language never dies in her
  mouth.
• William F. Claire Glorious, mostly sick,
  unbelievably irritating.

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Reflection of Criticism

• After reading many of her poems we agree with
  what the critics have said much of her writing is
  dark and depressing, but after learning about her
  life we can understand why they think that. We
  strongly agree with William F. Clares vision on
  how," A rare random descent was to strike Sylvia
  Plath often in poems that were fastidious in
  their choice of words, perceptive in their
  handling of metaphor and simile. The wonder of it
  all was her ability to keep imagery working for
  the poem and not against it. Her poems resist
  line extractions, build steadily, word by word,
  image by image."

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Reflection

• Although many may have thought of Sylvia Plath to
  be insane she was just simply misunderstood. For
  Plath, writing was an outlet to express her
  deepest emotions.
• And by the way, everything in life is writable
  about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and
  the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to
  creativity is self-doubt. Sylvia Plath