Sylvia Plath (who she was, what did she do, why is she remembered) - Essay Example

Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath was born in1932 in Jamaica Plain, her parents belonged to a middle family, and she had good writing skills and wrote her first poem at the age of 8. She was a daughter of German immigrant, who was a college professor. Her early poetry started soon after the death of her father, and wrote much about her relationship with him along with the feeling of betrayal that she felt once he was gone. Sylvia was shy by nature and wanted to be perfect in all her work. She was considered to be a role model daughter.

She was good with her parents as well as good with her studies, she was popular in her society and considered ideal with respect to her behavior. Sylvia always stood first in most of the competition she took part in. By 1950 she was enrolled in Smith College on scholarship and had many of her poems published already. Sylvia life looked perfect from the outside but she also had to face many difficulties in her life, the first one was the death of her father at the age of eight, she was too young and fragile to understand what she had lost.

This had a huge impact on her life and she even decided to commit suicide after her junior years by taking overdose of sleeping pills. She later wrote about the same incident in her novel called the “The Bell Jar” which was published in the year 1963 (Hunter). It was not easy to come out of the shock and for that she had to undergo psychotherapy, once she had recovered from the incident she took on to study literature and graduated from Smith College. Later she was also selected for Fulbright scholarship to Cambridge University, London (Biography).

In 1956 she married Ted Hughes who was also poet by nature and profession, her marriage to Ted could not last for long and soon after the birth of their first child they decided to part lives. By the time she turned 28 she had published her first book, “The Colossus in England”. Her first book reflected her writing skills and her dedication towards her work; it was in the early 1961 that she started writing poetry. During the years 1962-1963, Sylvia was living in London in a small flat and the country had seen one of the worst winters, along with her two children she fell ill and nearly broke.

The writing became more of a need to earn money; she usually worked early in the morning to finish her work before her children were up. She wrote a poem on daily basis, on Feb 11, 1963 died. Her death was caused due to excess intake of cooking gas. It was two years after her death that the poems were collected and published, and the efforts were made by her own ex-husband Ted Hughes. Sylvia Plath was considered as one of the most dynamic writers of the time, she was admired for her poetry even long after she was gone.

By the time Sylvia succeeded in killing herself at the age of 30 she had already established a well reputed name in the literary community. She catered to various readers from various communities, who were able to read the deep, violent emotions and her obsession with death. Even in her autobiography she has written all about her mental struggle with her life. Many of the famous writers have used various platforms to write their views about her poetry, and some of them have written than the poem of Sylvia had the hurt imagination, and the violence of her work would come from the violence of her imagination (Foundation).

Sylvia was a great writer and poet, although she couldn’t gain much herself out of her life and was obsessed with death but she has left a long legacy for the reader to read and learn from her life experiences. Her poems are now published and saved for eternity. BibliographyBiography. "Sylvia Plath Biography." 2014. Biography. 2014 .Foundation, Poetry. "Sylvia Plath." 2014. Poetry Foundation. 2014 .Hunter, Poem. "Sylvia Plath." 2014. Poem Hunter. 2014 .