SYLVIA PLATH

SYLVIA PLATH Born to middle class parents in Massachusetts; Published her first poem when she was eight; Sensitive, intelligent, compelled toward perfection.

SYLVIA PLATH  She was, on the surface, a model daughter, popular in school, earning straight A's, winning the best prizes.  By the time she entered Smith College, a prestigious all-girls school in Massachusetts, on a scholarship in 1950 she already had an impressive list of publications;  While at Smith she wrote over four hundred poems.

SYLVIA PLATH  In 1953, her short story, "Sunday at the Mintons" won first prize in a Mademoiselle contest.  She also won a Guest Editorship at Mademoiselle in New York City.

SYLVIA PLATH  After returning home, Sylvia nearly succeeded in killing herself by swallowing sleeping pills.  She later described this experience in an autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, published in 1963.

SYLVIA PLATH  After a period of recovery involving electroshock and psychotherapy Sylvia resumed her pursuit of academic and literary success, graduating from Smith summa cum laude in 1955 and winning a Fulbright scholarship to study at Cambridge, England.

SYLVIA PLATH  In 1956 she married Ted Hughes;  The Collosus, her first book, a collection of poems, was published in England, where she had moved after her marriage; she was 28 years old.

SYLVIA PLATH  Sylvia’s marriage fell apart less than two years after the birth of her first child;  During the winter of , one of the coldest in centuries, Sylvia was living in a small London apartment with two small children.  She was sick with the flu and low on money.

SYLVIA PLATH  The hardness of her life seemed to increase her need to write;  The harshness was also reflected in her poetry.  In these last poems death is given a cruel physical appeal and psychic pain becomes almost concrete.

SYLVIA PLATH  On February 11, 1963, Sylvia Plath killed herself with cooking gas at the age of 30.  As with the first attempt – there was plenty of drama.

 Sylvia Plath's gravesite in England is now visited by hundreds of people each year.

 Sylvia’s son, Nicholas Hughes, committed suicide on March 16, 2009, at the age of 47. He had long suffered from depression.  His sister, Frieda, lives in Australia and is a poet and painter.

ENDURING UNDERSTANDINGS Literature is influenced by the events of its time period; Literature explores the changing dynamics of the nuclear family; Literature assists in our struggle to find meaning in a world that is constantly changing; Literature serves as an outlet for individuals to process the world around them.

“DADDY” – FACTS TO REMEMBER  Plath’s father died when she was eight years old.  It is widely believed she never recovered from losing her father at any early age and that this led to her depression.  “Daddy” was written in 1965, almost 30 years after his death.

FACTS TO REMEMBER  He had emigrated from Grabow, Germany, located in the Polish Corridor.  Stereotypically, Germans are considered harsh; even the language is heavy-sounding.

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