The Life of Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was born near Boston, Massachusetts on October 27, 1932. She was the daughter of Otto and Aurelia Plath and she had a younger brother named Warren. She wrote fiction as well as poetry during her lifetime. Plath lived a very short life that was tainted with several dreadful events. Sylvia Plath had to deal with the death of her father, an awful marriage, various suicide attempts, and bouts of depression. Plath used her life experiences in her writings to evoke feeling from her audiences. The hurt, pain, and other dark feelings associated with the trials she faced are evident all throughout Plath’s writings. Sylvia Plath’s writing influence can be traced back all the way to her childhood growing up on the ocean. She wrote poems full of imagery depicting the ocean and showed her love for the ocean in her works. Plath even said in one of her letters home that, “my ocean-childhood . . . is probably the foundation of my consciousness." (Chapter 1) Sylvia Plath also writes about another influence from her childhood: her father. Plath’s father was a strict, German immigrant whose early death and way of life helped shape her writing style. Her father loved and raised bees, which is reflected in some of Plath’s work such as: "The Bee Meeting," "The Arrival of the Bee Box," "Stings," and "The Swarm." Otto Plath died of diabetes mellitus when Sylvia was only eight years old (Chapter 1). His death’s effect on Plath’s life can also be seen in her writing, especially the poem “Daddy.” Plath shows a need for her father through the words she uses in her poem; she feels that she was neglected by his death early in her life (Overview Daddy). Plath’s family moved to Wellesley two years after her father’s death. Sylvia was placed two grades ahead of where she was supposed to be. It was there at Wellesley that Plath began developing her writing skills and people started noticing them. In August 1950, Plath’s story, “And Summer Will Not Come Again,” was published in the

Cited: “Plath, Sylvia.” Encyclopedia Americana International Edition. Volume 22. Danbury, CT: Scholastic Library Publishing, Inc., 2004 "Overview: The Bell Jar." Novels for Students. Ed. Diane Telgen. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1998