Critical Analysis of Sylvia Plath as a Confessional Poet - Research Paper Example

13 December Sylvia Plath as a Confessional Poet Sylvia Plath was a young and poet with a life only 30 years long. Within that short period of time, she wrote many poems, many that were confessional of the pain that afflicted her own life. Through the use of words and the life that she knew, there are many uses of words and imagery of pain, loneliness, and hopelessness. For Plath, these are not just topics of discussion to simply write about. In an analysis of her work and a glimpse into her own biography, it is easier to comprehend why Sylvia Plath was a poet and writer who could be labeled as a confessional poet. A confessional poet is a category given to categorize literature in a particular genre. It was first identified following World War II. Robert Lowell was an author that initiated this classification with a publication of his own literature in 1959 where he identifies this style of writing to be that of Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke, and Anne Sexton. It was seen as a reaction to academic poetry writing by those such as W.H. Auden and T.S. Eliot whose writings were depersonalized. Instead, Plath was one of the poets who wrote from her own innate perspective, writing the most private of details from her life, whether it be intimate feelings or those of controversy. She writes of issues about sex, her children, suicide, the death of her father and uses methods that are witty, brutal and original (Osborne and Cedars 2012). To Plath, the themes of which she writes are real life afflictions and while she was a young woman of seclusion, writing was Plath’s therapy. She was able to regurgitate her feelings and confess her pain to readers though perhaps, some of these poems were never meant to be found. Some may consider her work dark and rigid. However, rather than writing about raindrops and sunshine, she wrote from the heart, as painful, isolated, and depressed as her world was. Whatever was on Plath’s mind and going on in her life are the words that became a part of the paper and part of Plath’s legacy as a writer. Many of these are what are considered to be works of a confessional poet, meaning that most of her work were those about her own life experiences. By looking at some of these poems, an analysis will be conducted about how Sylvia Plath wrote and the themes she used (Roberts and Zweig 797). A confessional poet can be defined as an individual who writes by sharing life facts and personal experiences. Through the writing, there are often themes of “difficulties, uncertainties, and personal pain,” (Roberts and Zweig 797). While Plath uses her poetry to describe her anguish rather than to actually complain about it. In her earlier years of writing, her work is almost lyrical and typical of an average poet. It is not until later in her life that the agony appears in the writing of her poetry. To truly understand the pain Sylvia Plath endured in a short life would be to look at her autobiography. She was born to a native German who became a professor at Boston University in entomology. Sylvia’s mother, who was several years younger than her father, was originally from Austria. Sylvia’s father, Otto, was diagnosed with diabetes and since he was in denial of his medical condition, he ignored what he should be doing to stay in good health. With his diabetic situation, his foot became infected and he was hospitalized. His foot was amputated and the infection still continued which led to his death when Sylvia was 8 years old. Sylvia’s mother was then a widower with two children, Sylvia and her brother, Warren. It was heartbreaking to Plath to lose her father as a young child and she chose to abandon her belief in God. The agony began and at the age of 10, she gashed her own throat in an alleged attempt of suicide. Despite being a sickly child after this throat gashing, she went on to become educated and even had her poems published (Roberts and Zweig 798). Plath expressed loneliness and despair in the themes of her poetry. She became self-confined and felt as though she was self-liberating from the conformity of society by staying to herself. She used imagery in her writing that was violent and she also used language that was harsh. This was how she wrote to deal with the pain. The short stories that she wrote in college were also centralized around themes of loneliness and hopelessness. She truly used words to convey images of rage, violence and her own self hurting which existed in her own life and her own mind (Ghasemi 290). In her early writings, Plath is an ambitious writer of short stories and poems that discuss female self-individuality. Growing up in the early 1900s, she was living in a patriarchal world where women were to be mostly seen and not heard. A woman creating a stir would be seen as revolting and that was unheard of during that time. She resisted the conformity to society where these patriarchal concepts were predominant. In poems such as “The Munich Mannequins,” and “The Applicants,” she discusses where women are pretty much just objects or possessions (Narbeshuber 185). Plath later wrote poems that blurred the lines between her own personal struggles and the struggles of women in society. The poems that were the most controversial were also those that established her legacy as an American writer. These poems were “Lady Lazarus” and “Daddy.” While the acts that are described in Plath’s poems are considered rebellious and self-destructive, they can also be seen as the psychological issues that Plath has experienced (Narbeshuber 186) and as a woman of youth and in her time, she wrote well before her time in regards to feminism and self-identity as a woman. However, she also removes the individuality that lies within women and describes women as a part of the overall system in society. While people may sit and analyze Sylvia Plath, all that is mostly left of her is the remnants of her writings. It is there that her soul still lives on to only be crucified, celebrated and overly analyzed. However, in an essay written by a classmate of Plath’s, there is more to Plath than just her writings that she left behind, the literary books that discuss her, and the history books that acknowledge her existence. To author Kathleen Spivack, she was a classmate at Boston University in 1959 and like herself, she arrived early to class (212). Spivack recalls Plath to be very still, composed, quiet and concentrated. She also described Plath as “softly pretty” and everything from the way her pencil was sitting on the desk to the way her coat was slung on the back of the chair was all neat (212-213). Spivack recalls reading a poem entitled “Doomsday” that Plath had written when she was in college and Spivack was in high school and it had always inspired her. Though she remembered the poem, she had forgotten the author and much to her surprise found that she would be sitting next to her in a college seminar in preparation for class as she represented the author that Spivack had wanted to be (212-213). Spivack said that she eventually put everything together and realized sitting next to her was the poet who had inspired her and when she told Plath the poem had meant so much to her, Plath was uninterested. In fact, Plath was not really interested in the class either and Spivack said, “Focused on her own goals, she was pleasant but noncommmital,” (213). This statement of observance is evident that Plath just kept her distance from interacting with people regardless of whether or not they had common interests. Spivack said that, “Her Journals from that time record how distant she felt from the class, but I think volcanic emotions lay beneath even the feelings of boredom,” (213). Even a classmate could sense the intelligence yet the troubled soul that sat next to her in class. While it is believed that the poems really are those of a confessional poet, Spivack almost seems surprised when she recounts the person she knew and the person whose writings she read. Spivack recalls, “The person in class and the person revealed in Sylvia Plath’s letters, journals, and eventual poems were entirely different. Longing, anger, ambition, and despair appear to have been motivating factors for that gifted poet,” (213). Spivack then compared Plath to the life of a Greek tragedy where there were destructive elements that lie within the protagonist but yet, her untimely suicide should have been apparent, even in the early years of Plath’s life (Spivack 214). When examining a person not just from their literature and disregarding what history says, it is a whole new perspective from the outlook of someone who actually knew Plath. Then again, did anyone actually ‘know’ Plath? To see her in person and to recall her behavior is a completely different outlook when considering Plath as a confessional poet. It can be easy to internalize the things that plague individuals, only to lay them all out on paper in such a way that Plath was able to, making her audience and her critics scratch their heads and mourn the blooming poet that Plath could have been despite if she would have been able to overcome the agony in her life. Much like those who suffer lifelong torment, Plath committed suicide in February of 1963. She left behind a husband, Ted Hughes, and children Freida and Nicholas. It was as if she had cast the life upon her survivors that her father had left upon her, causing the pain and agony that is evident in the writings of a tortured soul. Her own husband, despite his own guilt, believed that she likely would have ended her life regardless to put an end to her suffering (Whittington-Egan 238). Whether or not she could be deemed sane, it was evident she suffered from depression, whether it be psychotic or neurotic. Regardless, people who have analyzed her life after her death have tagged her as a ‘bitch goddess’ and was tagged as being ‘bitter,’ (Whittington-Egan 238). So to analyze her writings without truly knowing her and researching her entire 30 years of work and life would almost be an insult for it is impossible to know what really goes on in the head of a writer and one who appears to be severely troubled. In her celebrated poem, “Lady Lazarus,” which was written just months before Plath’s own death, she wrote these haunting words: “Dying / Is an art, like everything else, / I do it exceptionally well,” (Roberts and Zweig 799). The meaning of these words are capable of being interpreted in several different ways. But from the use of ‘I’ in the construction of the poem, it seems as though it is the author or narrator who is the one that is exceptionally good at the art of dying. Though a person will die once, it is as if Plath dies just a little bit more each day, until at last she finally does. It goes without saying that to look at the writings and the despair in Sylvia Plath’s words, she was woman who was forward-thinking. She was an author and poet ahead of her time. She was a feminist in every sense of nature. She was unafraid to use words that were unladylike and even cryptic. Whether or not Sylvia Plath would label herself as a confessional poet, it is through the correlation of her life and her literature that it can be presumed that the designation seems appropriate. To those who are left to analyze whether or not she was, it can be presumed that with feelings so deep and the use of ‘I’ that as readers, we are diving into her soul. Works Cited Ghasemi, Parvin. “Violence, Rage, and Self-Hurt in Sylvia Plath’s Poetry.” CLA Journal 51.3 (2008): 284. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 13 Dec. 2014. Narbeshuber, Lisa. “The Poetics of Torture: The Spectacle Of Sylvia Plath’s Poetry.” Canadian Review of American Studies 34.2 (2004): 185. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 13 Dec. 2014. Osborne, Kristen. Cedars, C.R. ed. “Confessional Poetry | Sylvia Plath: Poems Study Guide.” GradeSaver. (2012). Web. 13 Dec. 2014. Roberts, Edgar V. Zweig, Robert. “Sylvia Plath’s Life and Work (1932-1963).” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. 5th ed. Prentice Hall, 2012. 797-814. Print. Spivack, Kathleen. “Some Thoughts on Sylvia Plath.” Virginia Quarterly Review 80.2 (2004): 212. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 13 Dec. 2014. Whittington-Egan, Richard. “The Life After Death of Sylvia Plath.” Contemporary Review 272. 1588 (1998): 238. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 13 Dec. 2014. Read More