The Life Of Sylvia Plath :: essays research papers fc

The Life of Sylvia PlathSylvia Plaths heart, like her manic depression, constantly jumpedbetween promised land and Hell. Her seemingly perfect exterior hid a turbulent anddeeply luxuriant spirit. A closer look at her childhood and personalexperiences removes around component of mystery from her writings.One central character to Sylvia Plaths poems is her father, profOtto Emile Plath. Otto Plath was diabetic and refused to stay away from foodsrestricted by his doctor. As a termination , he developed a sore on his left foot.Professor Plath ignored the sore, and eventually the foot was overcome withgangrene. The foot and then the wide left leg were amputated in an effort tosave his life, but he died in November of 1940, when Sylvia was just eightyears old.     The fact that her father could ask prevented his death left SylviaPlath with a feeling of deliberate betrayal. Instead of arrive at out to otherpeople for comfort, she isolated herself with writing as her besides expressiveoutlet, and remarkably had a poem published when she was only eight.     Plath move prolific writing through high school and won ascholarship to Smith College in 1950 where she met her friend Anne Sexton.Sexton often conjugated Plath for martinis at the Ritz where they shared poetry andintellectualized discussions about death. Although they were friends, there wasalso an element of competition between Sexton and Plath. Sylvia Plaths poem "Daddy" was possibly a response to Anne Sextons "My Friend, My Friend." It wasas if Plath was commenting that her writing skills were just a bit separate thanSextons. Sexton frequently would express to Robert Lowell in his poetry classher dissatisfaction with Plaths writing. She verbalise that Plath "dodges the pointin her poetry and hadnt yet found the form that belonged to her." The agonistic nature of their relationship continued to the very end.      To a ll appearences, Plath appeared normal, her social life similar toother middle class coeds.Many were attracted to Plaths brilliant mind, but a couple of(prenominal)were aware of the inner torment that drove her to write, alienating her fromthe rest of society.     Madamoiselle cartridge clip awarded Plath a position as guest editor thesummer spare-time activity her junior year at Smith. Friends and family were stunned ather suicide elbow grease when she returned to college, most believing she hadsuffered a nervous breakdown due to the mental strain at the magazine. Her treatmentwas considered the best the medical world could offer and include electro-shockand psychotherapies. Plath tells her side of the story in the poem LadyLazarus where she likens her experience to a victim of the Holocaust.