by R. M. Ziegler

Created on: April 17, 2008

February 11, 1963, 30-year-old Sylvia Plath committed suicide with cooking gas in her London apartment. Primarily known as a poet, she published only one novel, The Bell Jar. Despite being a one-hit-wonder novelist, she was considered a pioneer and a pathfinder for women's fiction.

Sylvia Plath was born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts on October 27, 1932 to Otto and Aurelia Plath. Aurelia was a school teacher until she married Otto, and then she became a homemaker. Otto was a biology professor at Boston University. He died when Sylvia was eight years old from complications of diabetes. She and her father had had a close relationship, so his sudden and too-early absence had scarred her for life. The mixture of her longing, anger, and hate crept into her poems and also in her fiction.

Despite the loss, Sylvia excelled in school. She was popular and intelligent, the model daughter and student who earned straight A's, won prizes, and strove for perfection. By the time she entered Smith College on scholarship, she already had a list of publications under her belt. Her writing career began at the age of eight when her first poem was published in the Boston Sunday Herald. In her third year of college she became the guest editor of Mademoiselle and her experiences there and suicide attempt in 1953 became the basis of The Bell Jar. After intensive psychotherapy and electroconvulsive therapy, she returned to Smith College and graduated cumma sum laude in 1954.

In June 1956, several months after meeting poet Ted Hughes, the couple married. Home and husband became Sylvia's top priorities. Even before she met Hughes, she had struggled with what ought to be a proper role for a woman. Earlier, in a January 1953 journal entry she wrote, "I accept the idea of a creative marriage now as I never did before; I believe I could paint, write, and keep a home and husband, too. Ambitious wot? I also believe I probably wouldn't die by confining myself to one man for 50 years. Oh, it is a great huge enormous decision, but I must stay aware of this: I could be more of a prisoner as an older, tense, cynical career girl than as a richly creative wife and mother who is growing intellectually."

The confinement she wrote of would lead to the title of her only novel. Bell Jar had feminist implications, symbolizing internal chaos and despair produced by excessive, external prohibitions. The Bell Jar was not its original title. In a 1959 journal entry, she referred to it as "Snake Pit." She wrote,

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>