Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath has been called a heroine, a cult figure, even a goddess, but beneath the façade lies a delicate woman, a mother, and a literary genius. The subject matter of her work revolved around a few elemental aspects of her short life: her illness, her parents, and her family, all of which she cleverly masked in her works. Plath took the quote, "We only begin to live when we conceive life as tragedy…" (McCullough 6), to center in her writing, using strong images and symbols to represent her personal tragedy and to convey herself through her writing. After her death, people began to discover in her work a shocking revelation of extremist elements parallel to her life and what she wrote in her poems and books.
Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932, in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts to Otta and Aurelia Plath. When Sylvia was eight years old, Otta passed away, due to undiagnosed diabetes. Her father’s death scarred her permanently. “I’ll never speak to God again.” (McCull...