Sylvia Plath Research Paper - 2682 Words

I Have No Wit, I Have No Words, No Tears Sylvia Plath’s life story could be considered tragic as she was monopolized by a severe depression yet expressed her sorrows through enlightening words in her many poems. The death of her father when she was only eight years old commenced her lifelong despondency and insecurities. In the poem â€Å"Daddy†, she speaks of how she never fully understood him and blames him for the emptiness she feels without a father. As time moved on, Plath discovered her writing talent while excelling in school (Harmon). Although a story of hers was welcomed by Seventeen Magazine her senior year of high school and she received two scholarships to attend Smith College in Massachusetts and was accepted to notable†¦show more content†¦In the poem â€Å"Lady Lazarus†, Plath speaks again of her distrust of men. It is also a biblical reference to Lazarus in a negative way as he is referred to as a Nazi, similar to her comparison to her f ather. The need to prove her own sexuality and that of all women in society is common in Plath’s feminist writing. â€Å"But the poet addresses the same societal forces that direct this practice, forces intent on silencing a woman’s ability to articulate her sexual nature† (Stricker). She believes it is unfair that women cannot express their sexuality without being judged in society and she makes out to change that. â€Å"Here the poet refers to the thumb directly as a sexual being. the ‘dirty girl’ of many parents’ nightmares is the daughter who is promiscuous, or maybe a girl-child who simply enjoys sex† (Stricker). Also pertaining to women, she constantly discusses how men assume authority in life and she seeks to change this with her words from the poem â€Å"Lady Lazarus†. â€Å"Out of the ash / I rise with my red hair / and I eat men like air† (Plath). In â€Å"Never Try to Trick Me With a Kiss†, a pessimisti c Plath is utterly disgusted with men as she is finished with being pushed around. Towards the end of her life, she reclaims her voice and the voice of all women with her empowering words. As Sylvia Plath was depressed for the majority of her life, death and suicide permeate herShow MoreRelatedSylvia Plath ´s Three Stages1081 Words   |  4 Pagesmight be? I am he, the creation of Sylvia Plath. I am the persona and the protagonist of the poem, ‘Insomniac’. This poem was written in May 1961, four months after the miscarriage. During this period, Plath was diagnosed with acute insomnia and was pregnant. The elapsed time of this poem is from darkness to daylight respectively to each stanza. It can be said that this period from darkness to daylight is a representation of a long period of time for Sylvia Plath, stretching months. The poem can beRead MoreThe Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath1211 Words   |  5 PagesSylvia Plath Research Paper Title The Bell Jar place[s] [the] turbulent months[of an adolescent’s life] in[to] mature perspective (Hall, 30). In The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath uses parallelism, stream of consciousness, the motif of renewal and rebirth, symbolism of the boundary-driven entrapped mentally ill, and auto-biographical details to epitomize the mental downfall of protagonist, Esther Greenwood. Plath also explores the idea of how grave these timeless and poignant issues can affect a fragileRead MoreBook Summary Of The Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath1528 Words   |  7 Pages Book Summary. The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath was published in 1963. It is an autobiography that is said by some to correspond to the author’s life. Throughout this research paper, I fully agree that this is an autobiography of Plath’s life, but will get into why further into the paper. With this in mind, the protagonist, Esther Greenwood, travels from Massachusetts to New York as a guest editor for a magazine. Esther loves poetry. Knowing this, Esther is staying with eleven other girls at a hotelRead MoreMutilating Self Into Spirit: Sylvia Plaths Poems.4131 Words   |  17 PagesSylvia Plath’s poems: Translation of the self into spirit, after an ordeal of mutilation. Introduction of the poems and the essay: * â€Å"Daddy† Sylvia Plath uses her poem, â€Å"Daddy†, to express intense emotions towards her father’s life and death and her disastrous relationship with her husband. The speaker in this poem is Sylvia Plath who has lost her father at age ten, at a time when she still adored him unconditionally. Then she gradually realizes the oppressing dominance of her father, andRead MoreAn Evaluation of Nature Poetry in Reference to Plath, Huges and Keats.1876 Words   |  8 Pagesown analysis of my selected poems. The first poet I want to look at is Sylvia Plath (1932-1963). Plaths work intrigues me, as does her life. After losing her farther at the age of eight, she suppressed her inner feelings and instead of reaching out to other people for comfort, she isolated herself with writing as her only expressive outlet. Then remarkably, Sylvia Plath had a poem published when she was only eight. Plath continued prolific writing through high school and won a scholarship to SmithRead MoreA Courage’s Attempt to Take Her Life back in Sylvia Plath’s â€Å"Daddy† 1991 Words   |  8 PagesSylvia Plath a highly acclaimed twentieth century American poet whose writings were mostly influenced by her life experiences. Her father died shortly after her eighth birthday and her first documented attempt at suicide was in her early twenties. She was married at age twenty-three and when she discovered her husband was having an affair she left him with their two children. Her depression and the abandonment she felt as a child and as a woman is what inspires most of her works. Daddy is a majorRead MoreThe Bell Jar2368 Words   |  10 PagesResearch Paper: The Bell Jar, By: Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar is a work of fiction that spans a six month time period in the life of the protagonist and narrator, Esther Greenwood. The novel tells of Esther’s battle against her oppressive surroundings and her ever building madness, this is the central conflict throughout the narrative. After coming home from a month in New York as a guest editor for a magazine, Esther begins to have trouble with everyday activities such as reading,Read MoreAnalysis Of Sylvia Plath s Life1797 Words   |  8 PagesSylvia Plath was born in 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts. She wrote her first poem at the young age of 8  ½. that poem was displayed in The Boston Traveller. When she first began writing, she wrote about general topics, nature, and scenery, but as time went on and with more experience, her poems acclaimed more depth. Plath loved writing, and in an interview with Peter Orr, Plath once said ‘I don t think I could live without it. It s like water or bread, o r something absolutely essential to me. I findRead MoreAnalysis Of `` Mirror `` By Sylvia Plath And `` The Yellow Wallpaper ``1193 Words   |  5 Pagesart 1: In my ENGL220 class, we have been reading a different kind of literature works. Different literature stories have struck a responsive chord in readers’ hearts. Two of literature works â€Å" Mirror † by Sylvia Plath and short story â€Å" The Yellow Wallpaper† by Charlotte Perkins Gilman both shows female’s oppressive living in patriarchal society and control by men. In the poemâ€Å" Mirror†, in the 20 century, the society influence women should care about how they look and they feelRead MoreThe Link Between Creativity and Bipolar Disorder, Annotated Bibliography854 Words   |  4 Pagesdisorder is a popular assumption. The fact that many creative people, including Van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway, Leo Tolstoy, and Sylvia Plath, suffered from some kind of mental disorders triggers that idea. Psychologists have been interested in this contingent link for decades. In this paper, after defining both terms, I examine three articles that report the results of the research concerning the potential relationship between creativity and bipolar disorder. Paulus Nijstad (2003) defined creativity