Sylvia Plath

Starting at the age of five, Sylvia Plath utilized the events in her life either positive or negative to inspire her constant writing, which essentially chronicled her life. Much of Sylvia's work is seen as auto biographical pieces, The Bell Jar in particular parallels her life and her many points of view. A perfectionist all throughout life, Sylvia was always geared towards success, but whenever a problem arose, it was difficult for her to handle because she was so used to everything being easy. Sylvia's novel The Bell Jar serves as an effective auto-biographical novel detailing the few high points and delving into the depression and hard-hitting struggles of her life. Plath's life can be clarified and more easily understood by comparing her works to the parallels of her life and by viewing the ideals she presented in her works.

The Plaths lived in Jamaica Plain, on the outskirts of Boston until 1935 when Sylvia's brother Warren was born and the family moved to Winthrop which was more east of Boston than Jamaica Plain. Sylvia's father Otto Plath was a very gifted man who was a professor at the acclaimed Boston University. With Warren's birth came the downfall of Otto Plath's health, being a sharp and intelligent man Otto tried to diagnose himself because he saw a friend with similar symptoms and decided he must have cancer just like him. Otto eventually died on November 5, 1940 essentially because of his own inability to realize that he may have something other than cancer. Unlike cancer, Diabetes Mellitus, Otto's actual ailment is highly treatable and his life may have had been saved if it wasn't for his stubborn ways. The Plath family changed homes once again in 1942 from Winthrop to Wellesley where Sylvia remained until the end of her high school career.

Sylvia was always a talented student, even when she was young and her first poem was published when she was only eight years old in the Boston Herald. Sylvia then continued to shine in English and creative writing but also maintaining straight A's in the rest of her courses. Plath's exceptional grades and advanced writing skills helped her to receive a scholarship to Smith College, which she was extremely excited to attend. Early on Sylvia "immediately felt the pressures of College life, from the academic to the social." (Steinberg 1). The scholarship came from Olive Higgins Prouty, who was a famous author or that time and the two had a connection that would last the rest of Sylvia's life.

In the beginning of her stay at Smith College Sylvia wrote continuously in journals, short stories, and poems; "She had the craft of poem making down, but she didn't have the voice." (Steinberg 1). Sylvia was very meticulous in her perfectionist ways and crafted each poem perfectly while using other authors as her guidelines; Sylvia began to send out her works to various magazines and publications facing much rejection but had some success. From one of the stories that she submitted Ð''Sunday at the Mintons' won her a spot to stay at the Barbizon Hotel in New York City during the summer of 1953 with other young writers for Mademoiselle magazine. It is during this time in Sylvia's life where her novel, The Bell Jar really begins to parallel her life and her eventual downward spiral into depression. Her stay in New York left her exhausted in every way possible, and the only thing that she was looking forward to was attending a summer course in writing at Harvard University.

It turns out that Sylvia was rejected from the program and it sent her full throttle into an extremely depressed and pessimistic state of mind. All throughout July and August Sylvia was dejected and on the 24th of August she had her first attempt at suicide, leaving a note that she had gone for a long walk, when in fact she ventured into a crawlspace and took several sleeping pills that knocked her unconscious. Thankfully her mother took the initiative to look for her and two days later Sylvia was found and rushed to a hospital, where she recovered thanks to the help from Olive Prouty and returned to Smith for the spring semester. During her time in the hospital Sylvia received electric shock treatments to help her, but Plath felt otherwise and she felt like it was a dark time in her life. The harsh treatment led her to harbor resentful feelings towards doctors and only added to her problems. The next year, there seemed to be a surge in Sylvia's life and she did remarkably well in school, acing her classes ; that summer she even studied at Harvard where she had once been rejected. The next year Sylvia graduated from Smith summa cum laude and received accolades and another scholarship, this time to Cambridge University in England.

"Sylvia was most excited about Cambridge for many reasons, two of which were its possibility for the best education and to find a man to marry at a time when men outnumbered women at Cambridge by the astonishing ten to one." (Steinberg 1). At first Cambridge University was extremely overwhelming for Plath because it was so different from what she was used to but after a while she became more accustomed to her surroundings. The classes there were chosen for two years instead of by semesters and they had large final exams after that two year period meaning that it was more difficult to remember everything and keep it all together for that amount of time. Even though they way that the classes was set up, the course load that Sylvia had was far easier so she had much more time to venture out and try new things such as a theatrics club.

Before Plath had left for Cambridge, she was dating many different men but was dating many different men and then during her stay at college she remained involved with a man who was now living in Paris, Richard Sassoon. The two even spent winter vacation together and even though they were together Richard was in love with other women and told Plath to cease contact with him and if he wanted to speak to her, he would make the effort. This upset Sylvia very much because at 23 she felt that she was too old and desperately needed someone to love and to love her back. The winter that year did not help with the slow depression that she was beginning to fall into, but this time around she sought medical help and met with a psychiatrist. Shortly after meeting with Dr Levy, Plath met with Ted Hughes, a prominent writer of the time and they quickly became smitten with each other.

The two married shortly after in June of 1956, the two went to Spain and had a summer's long honeymoon there. Eventually Plath moved in with Hughes and while she was continuing her studies, he began to work at a boys school. That spring Sylvia was offered a Freshman English teaching position at Smith College, but Sylvia needed to concentrate on her final