𝙚𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙡𝙞𝙩 𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙛𝙛

sylvia plath

the following text was written for my english speaking and listening exam where a speech had to be written on a subject we were passionate on. i chose sylvia plath and received a distinction* for this.

“Dying
Is an art, like everything else.  
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.  
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I’ve a call.”

Envisage this  - Sylvia Plath’s body, her head disguised by the cover of a gas oven and her two children sound asleep with no idea of the perilous condition their mother lay in.

She was 30 years old.

Sylvia Plath was born on the 27th of October 1932, in Massachusetts. Publishing her first poem at the age of eight, she was described as ‘a literature prodigy’ and had entered (and won) many literary competitions in her youth. She then attended Smith College, which was a private liberal arts school, on a full-ride scholarship.

A large amount of pressure was placed onto her to do well academically, artistically and socially – which may have amounted to the mental struggles she faced later in life. She began to suffer from severe depression during her time in college and her psychiatric hospitalisation was triggered by her not being able to meet Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. A few weeks later she slashed her legs to see if “she had enough courage to kill herself.” She then received electroconvulsive therapy but following this, she had her first medically documented suicide attempt.

Sylvia Plath and fellow poet, Ted Hughes, married on the 16th of June 1956 after three months of knowing each other. Plath described Hughes as "a singer, story-teller, lion and world-wanderer with a voice like the thunder of God". Together, they travelled across Canada and the United States and it is here she learned "to be true to my own weirdness". Their daughter Frieda Hughes was born on April 1, 1960, and in October, Plath published her first collection of poetry, The Colossus.

In February 1961, Plath’s second pregnancy ended in miscarriage which is highly prevalent in her poem Parliament Hill Fields –
“Your absence is inconspicuous;
Nobody can tell what I lack.”
In a letter to her therapist, she wrote “Ted beat me up physically a couple of days before my miscarriage.” She kept this a secret from even her own mother until her death – she did not want to bare the shame that came with it.

In August 1961, the pair began to rent their flat to Assia Wevill and David Wevill. KThis is when Hughes became awestruck with Assia’s beauty and Plath noticed this. A year after the Wevills moved in, Sylvia Plath drove her car off the side of a river two days after discovering her husband had an affair with Assia Wevill. She survived this and then split from Hughes, taking her two children Frieda and Nicholas with her.

During the winter of 1962, Plath experienced a burst of creativity and wrote 43 poems that would later form her posthumous collection Ariel, which contains her most notable works such as Lady Lazarus. At the time she was living in a flat five streets away from where Ted Hughes remained. The house which she was renting had belonged to William Butler Yeats and she considered this the reason for her sudden works of genius. However, in the winter of 1962, it was recorded as the coldest in 100 years and her two children were often sick – she had no access to any communication or telephone. It was during this time her depression was at its worst but this is when she wrote her only novel “The Bell Jar” which she wrote under the pen name Victoria Lucas and received critical indifference.

Before her death, Plath had many suicide attempts. In August 1963, she overdosed on sleeping pills and beforehand had spoke with her general practitioner, John Horder who was a close friend of hers, about her year long depressive episode. She stated she had been able to keep working during the period and take care of her physical appearance but now her depression was worsening and “marked by constant agitation, suicidal thoughts and inability to cope with daily life.” She also struggled with insomnia and relied on medication to induce sleep but still woke up frequently early. She was prescribed an antidepressant, monoamine oxidase inhibitor, a few days before her suicide. However, these would have had no effect on her mental state as it is reported that it takes a month of repeated treatment for those antidepressants to work. Hughes also claimed that the antidepressants played a key factor in Plath’s suicide as she had an adverse reaction to antidepressants she had taken when they lived in America and Hughes blamed Horder completely for his ex-wife’s death.

John Horder had scheduled a nurse to visit Plath at 9am on the morning of February 11th, 1963 to assist her in caring for the children. Upon arrival the nurse was unable to enter the flat but eventually found a workman who could help her. They found Sylvia Plath dead with her head shoved in a gas oven. Her intentions have been debated – she had asked her neighbour Trevor Thomas what time he would be leaving and left a note telling him to “call Dr Horder” including his phone number.

Sylvia Plath’s gravestone in Heptonstall’s parish bares the quote – “ even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted.” Hughes became distraught after her death as they had only been separated for six months. He stated “that’s the end of my life. The rest is posthumous.” Her life was melancholy and heart-breaking, but from this trauma came some of the most notable poetry works of the 20th century. She is credited with creating the genre of confessional poetry and empowering other women to let out their feelings through the medium of poetry and fiction.