Sylvia Plath
By: Austin Gunnerson, Hannah Kraus,
Alex Schmitz, Rachael Vonnahme
Sylvia Plath Childhood in Boston
• Sylvia Plath was born on October 27th, in 1932
• Born in Boston, Massachusetts
• Her father was Otto Emil Plath and her mother was
Aurelia Schober Plath
• Her brother Warren was born on April 27th, in
1935
• The Plath family moved to Winthrop after Warren
was born and that is where they raised their kids
• Sylvia was familiar with the sea and recognized the
power of it
Sylvia Growing Up
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Syvlia's father Otto Plath worked at the University of Boston
He was a Biology teacher and an expert on bees
He was recognized nationally for his bee studies
Otto Plath died on November 5th, in 1940 from diabetes mellitus
when Syvlia was only 8 years old
The Plath family moved to Wellesely, Massachusetts after Otto's
death
Sylvia repeated 5th grade so she could take class with her
classmates
She got straight A's all throughout highschool and excelled in
English specifically creative writing
Sylvia published her first poem in the Boston Herald when she
was only 8 years old
Her Illness
• Sylvia Plath’s famousness led her to deep times in her
career.
• Her critics led her to attempts of suicide but that isn’t her
only problem.
• Sylvia was thought to have bipolar disease or a sever case of
PMS
• Her first break down was in collage; she was hospitalized
and was treated with shock therapy.
• Some weeks later she had a suicide attempt and was put in
intense therapy for a six month program
Her Illness Continued
• Sylvia's sucicied attempt was when Sylvia took and
overdose of sleeping pills
• She then hit her head over the gas stove which
was running
• She was passed out and was hoping that would
put her to a painless death
• This whole time her two kids were in the other
room where Sylvia told them to stay hoping they
wouldnt be harmed by the gas stove
Sylvia's Adulthood
• Sylvia went to Smith College in Massachusetts from 1950-1955
• After Sylvia graduated she moved to Cambridge, England on a
scolarship
• At a party in Cambrige, she met a poet named Ted Hughes
• Ted and Sylvia were married shortly after on June 16, 1956
• They moved back to Massachusetts in 1957
• Sylvia gave birth to her two children, Frieda and Nicolas, in
England in the years 1960 and 1962
• Ted left Sylvia in 1962 for a German woman named Assia
Gutmann Wevill. This caused Sylvia to go into a deep depression
• While in a deep depression she wrote peoms for her most iconic
book Ariel
• In 1963 Sylvia published a semi-autobiographical novel called The
Bell Jar
• Sylvia's first collection of poems called Colossus was published in
1960
Sylvia's Adulthood
• Sylvia's poetic work is known for it's violence and disturbing
imagery, but it's also known for it use of alliteration and rhyme
• When Hughes left Sylvia, she wrote letter to her mother, Aurelia
Plath, about how Hughes had left her in poverty, but in reality he
gave her all their joint savings
• Hughes was accused by people of killing Sylvia after she
committed suicide on a gas stove in 1963
• Hughes created volumes of Sylvia's work and then he published
them
• These volumes that he published won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize
• Between the years 1950 to 1963 Sylvia wrote nearly a thousand
letter to her mother, which were edited by Aurelia Plath and made
into Letters Home in 1975 and then published
Mirror
• Mirror is a work of poetry by Sylvia Plath
• It was written in 1961, one year before her
separation from her husband
• 2 years before her suicide
Mirror by: Sylvia Plath
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
2 Whatever I see I swallow immediately
3 Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
4 I am not cruel, only truthful5 The eye of the little god, four cornered.
6 Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
7 It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
8 I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
9 Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
10 Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
11 Searching my reaches for what she really is.
12 Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
13 I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
14 She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
15 I am important to her. She comes and goes.
16 Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
17 In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
18 Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish
1
Literary analysis of Mirror
• Mirror is about the way a woman constantly
consults her mirror to see how she looks
• The poem is told from the point of view of the
mirror and a lake
• The mirror considers itself like a God because it
always gives a clear image without any changes
due to judgement. (See lines 1-5)
• People consult the mirror to see how they look so
they can maintain their physical image.
Literary analysis continued
• The lake gives a deeper reflection
• It talks about a woman that looks into it every morning
• It says that candles and the moon are liars because
thenlight they give is inadaquate for a proper reflection
(line 12)
• The Woman drowns a young girl in the lake saying as a
young girl she frequently looks into the lake and puts
the reflection of a young girl onto the waters
• An old woman rises up toward her day after day
meaning even though she is young she sees her
reflection as one of an old ugly woman
Mirror Final Analysis
• Mirror reflects a woman being dissatisfied with her appearance
and seeing herself as an old, terrible person even though she is
young
• Just the interpretation i got from the poem
• Many other possible interpretations (Ambiguity)
Resources
• "
S
y
l
v
i
a
P
l
a
t
h
F
o
r