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I had to write this BS for english, so wtf, might as well post it
Sylvia Plath was born October 27, 1932 in Massachusetts, and published her first poem at eight years old. Right after her eighth birthday, her father died of diabetes mellitus. In the fall of 1950, she went to Smith College on a scholarship. In 1953, she swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills, but she was found in time, and managed to survive. She recovered, and went on to graduate summa cum laude, and received a Fulbright Scholarship to Newnham College, Cambridge University. In 1956 she married Ted Hughes, an English poet.
In 1962, she found out that Ted had been having an affair, and later in the year, they became legally separated. On February 11, 1963, Sylvia Plath sealed off the room and put her head in a gas oven. She left a note for her neighbor on the floor below to call the doctor, but he was knocked out by the gas, and he was too late to do anything.
"Lady Lazarus" and "Fever 103 " were published in the book Ariel, which was published in 1965 after her death. They were both written during the winter after she became separated from her husband, not long before her death.
"Fever 103" is about her being sick, with a high fever. The title instantly brings illness to mind. It uses most of the senses, with the heat she feels mentioned multiple times throughout the poem, including "the tongues of hell," "does not my heat astound you?" "hot metal" and "acetylene Virgin." It also seems to imply touch when talking about her "gold beaten skin / Infinitely delicate and infinitely expensive," which may be talking about how sensitive it feels.
She also uses the other senses, mentioning "the indelible smell," "yellow sullen smokes," "The dull, fat Cerberus" which is visual, who "wheezes at the gate." which would be auditory. The poem is in the form of short triplets.
The tone of the poem is she feels forced into giving up, she feels she is fighting a losing battle against an illness and doesn't seem to have the energy to care anymore. She says that "I think I am going up / I think I may rise." as in go up to heaven, because she also says she is a "pure acetylene / virgin / attended by roses To Paradise." saying that she thinks she is going to die soon. With that in mind, the mood would also be sad, because she is sick and losing hope.
The subject of the poem is Plath, and the object would probably be surviving. The obstacle would be her sickness, and the donor and helper are non-existent, she feels alone,
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by Matt Dubois
Sylvia Plath was a uniquely troubled individual, whose originality of vision was reflected by her often dark, brooding poetry.
Sylvia Plath wrote "Lady Lazarus" about a half a year before she had committed suicide in the kitchen of her London flat;
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Sylvia Plath's strong feministic views can be found in many of her works; "Mushrooms" seems to be overlooked
Aspects of womanhood, positive as well as problematical, abound in the poetry of Sylvia Plath.
Factor in a brilliant mind,
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Introduction
The aims of this essay are fundamentally simple and modest. It proposes to examine two common literary devices,
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Assessing Sylvia Plath's poetry
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