Research Paper On Sylvia Plath's Poetry

Sylvia Plath’s Confessional Poetry and Struggle with Depression Numerous people around the world suffer from some form of depression and the great American poet Sylvia Plath was no exception. Depression can be defined as a mood disorder that causes persistent feelings of inadequacy, sadness and loss of interest. Those who suffer from depression often have difficulty accomplishing everyday tasks and may feel as if life isn’t worth living anymore. Now considered a mental illness throughout America, there is more resources for those affected by depression, such as therapy and medication to cope. However, during the 1950’s Plath did not have access to these resources and often expressed her feelings of sadness and inadequacy through her poetry.
Plath’s ongoing struggle with mental illness contributed significantly to her poetic style. After suffering from depression for most of her life, Plath published a semi-autobiographical novel about her descent into mental illness and her personal experiences which she titled The Bell Jar. Using the alias Victoria Lucas, she describes the process of her mental breakdown numerous suicide attempts, and recovery. In one of her journals Plath writes, “It is as if my life is run by two electrical currents: joyous positive and despairing negative – whichever is running at the moment dominates my life, floods it”, describing to her readers her struggle with depression (Foundation). As Plath begins to find her voice in poetry, she eventually begins developing a book she names Ariel, a collection of poems written in the months before her death. This book was comprised of Plath’s personal accounts on her anger, insecurity, fear, and tremendous sense of loneliness. With vivid descriptions of death, suicide and brutality, she is embracing her immense fascination with dying and displaying to her readers the demons she carries (Sylvia Plath
She later writes a poem which she names “Daddy”, a description of the dominance and entrapment she felt her father held over her. However, Plath experiences the loss of her father with mixed emotions and goes on to say her father died while she thought he was God. In other words, her father was very special to her but she becomes angry at the fact that her father died at such a critical time in her development (Arid). Additionally, two weeks before her suicide Plath revises a poem “Sheep in a Fog”, which once read, "Patriarchs till now immobile in heavenly wools row off as stones or clouds with the faces of babies.” But now reads “They threaten to let me through to a heaven starless and fatherless, a dark water," (Phillipson). Plath is once again dwelling on the fact that she is fatherless and it has affected her entire