Sylvia Plath: Research Paper Essay Example
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 “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 internships, Plath was never completely satisfied with herself. She felt as though there was always something she needed to prove to the world. Suffering a severe breakdown after her junior year at Smith in 1953, Plath attempted suicide for the first time as disappointments outweighed her many achievements (McCann). Recovering from electroconvulsive shock therapy, Plath graduated from Smith College and proceeded to study at Cambridge University in England. There she published her first collection of work called The Colossus and Other Poems. Soon after, she began her first ambiguously autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. Unfortunately, it was not as successful as she and many others had hoped at the time. But Plath came back by writing a radio play, Three Women: A Monologue for Three Voices and her so-called October poems. These literary pieces unleashed the vexation she felt from expectations others had for her (Harmon)(Gilbert). At Cambridge University, Plath met and secretly married Ted Hughes, an English poet. They both worked as college professors for a time to pay the bills but focused much energy on writing poetry books. After moving around England and the United States, Plath gave birth to a