Sylvia Plath ( )

Childhood/Growing up Born to middle class parents Born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts Her father (a college professor and expert on bees) died when she was eight – Wrote a poem about him (entitled “Daddy”) in which she compared her father to Adolf Hitler She published her first poem when she was eight

Childhood/Growing up (cont) She was sensitive, intelligent, compelled toward perfection in everything she attempted On the surface, she was a model student and daughter Popular in school Earned straight A’s and won the “best prizes”

Childhood/Growing Up (cont) Entered Smith College on a scholarship in 1950 By this time she already had an impressive list of publications While at Smith, she wrote over 400 poems

The beginning of her problems… Her surface perfection was underlain by grave personal discontinuities Some of these problems may have been caused by her father’s death when she was 8 Served as a guest editor at Mademoiselle magazine in New York City during her junior year at Smith

During her senior year of college, Plath experienced her first breakdown. She was subsequently hospitalized and treated with shock therapy. Described her hospitalization as "[a] time of darkness, despair, and disillusion--so black only as the inferno of the human mind can be-- symbolic death, and numb shock--then the painful agony of slow rebirth and psychic regeneration." The beginning of her problems…

She nearly succeeded in killing herself with sleeping pills the summer after returning from NYC in Had six months of intensive therapy—all paid for by a benefactress She later described this experience in an autobiographical novel titled The Bell Jar She graduated from Smith summa cum laude in 1955 and won a Fulbright scholarship to study at Cambridge, England

Adult Life In 1956, she married the English poet Ted Hughes (died in 1998 from cancer) In 1960, her first book of poetry, The Colossus, was published She and Ted Hughes settled in the English country village of Devon Less than two years after the birth of their 1 st child, their marriage broke apart

First Child (Frieda)

Second Child (Nicholas

Adult Life / Falling Apart The winter of was one of the coldest in centuries Plath, who lived in a London flat, now had 2 children, was ill, and was low on money The hardness of her life seemed to increase her need to write, as she often worked between 4-8 a.m., before the children woke During this time, she sometimes finished one poem per day

Adult Life / Falling Apart These last poems were deeper, as if a powerful self had grabbed control of her Death and psychic pain were common in these poems On February 11, 1963, Sylvia Plath killed herself with cooking gas at the age of 30

Details of her death… “She placed her head in a gas oven after completely sealing the rooms between herself and her children. She left a note for the man who lived downstairs…to call her doctor. However, rather than rising, the gas seeped through the floor and knocked Mr. Thomas out cold for several hours. An au pair girl was to arrive at nine o'clock that morning to help Plath with the care of her children. Arriving promptly at 9, the au pair could not get into the flat. It has been suggested that Plath's timing & planning of this suicide attempt was too precise, too coincidental, not to be ‘serious’ or intended…”

Nicholas Hughes At the age of 47, Plath’s son, Nicholas Hughes, committed suicide. He hanged himself at his home in Alaska after battling depression (article)article "He was a man who reached his mid-forties, an adventurous marine biologist with a distinguished academic career behind him and a host of friends and achievements in his own right."

Frieda Hughes Plath’s firstborn Only survivor of her family Similar to her brother and mother, has battled depression Worked as a painter and poet Now training to become a bereavement counsellor (article)article

Plath and Hughes

Frieda Hughes

Nicholas Hughes