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Meeghan Smolinsky
Ms. Leyland
English II Honors Mods 5-6
March 28, 2014
“She herself is a little like a racehorse, galloping relentlessly with risked,
outstretched neck, death hurdle after death hurdle topped." These are the words Robert
Lowell used to describe Sylvia Plath in the foreword to her collection of poems Ariel. The image
of “death hurdles” accurately portrays the obstacles Plath faced throughout her short life. She
experienced death, marital troubles, and severe depression, all which are chronicled in her
confessional-style writing. Despite these challenges, she was a crucial voice for women in the
1960s. Sylvia Plath’s obsession with death, mental illness, and feminist views are reflected
in both the themes and structure of her poems.
Sylvia Plath lost her father at the young age of eight, which influenced her poetry
throughout her career. She had a pleasant early childhood growing up in Massachusetts.
However, Plath’s father Otto, a German immigrant, died from untreated diabetes in 1940
(“Daddy” 65). Many of Plath’s poems center on mourning, death, and loss: an obsession that
would captivate her until her own early death in 1963. These themes appear through both the
subject matter, like the “black, cacophonous flocks” of birds she describes in “Blackberrying”
(10), as well the controlled and intense form of her poems. Her loss is particularly evident in her
poem “Daddy.” In the poem, Plath includes an autobiographical reflection on the death of her
father. She writes, “You died before I had time,” (7) expressing her experience with her father’s
early death. Before he died, her father’s leg was amputated as a result of the diabetes that would
eventually kill him (“Daddy” 66). In the poem, Plath describes the image of her father’s dead
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body as “Marble-heavy, a bag full of God, Ghastly statue with one gray toe,” (8-9) reflecting his
leg amputation. She also writes in “Daddy,” “I was ten when they buried you / At twenty I tried
to die / And get back, back, back to you” (56-59). This would suggest that the death of Plath’s
father played a role in her mental instability.
Plath battled mental illness and attempted suicide several times, which also impacted the
theme and structure of her poems. During her junior year of college, Plath experienced a mental
breakdown and attempted suicide by swallowing sleeping pills. She was believed to be manicdepressive and underwent shock treatments (Eder). In order to receive the electroshock
treatments, Plath was institutionalized during a time when mental illness was highly stigmatized
(“Plath” 1309). She used her experiences to write her only published fiction novel The Bell
Jar, which chronicles a young woman named Esther who receives inhumane treatment at a
psychiatric facility (“Sylvia Plath”). However, Plath also discusses this time in her life in her
poem “Mirror.” She contrasts the truthfulness and unbiased view of a mirror to the prejudice she
experienced while receiving mental healthcare.
Despite the shock treatment, Plath continued to suffer from severe depression for many
years. In 1962, Plath’s marriage to fellow poet Ted Hughes failed and she was left to raise their
two young children alone (Looser). Doris Eder explains that it was during this “icy winter of
1962–1963 that Plath, her feeling of abandonment by her husband reopening the old wound
sustained on the death of her father, once again succumbed to depression.” Many of Plath’s great
works were written during this time and reveal her mental state. In October of 1962, several
weeks before her thirtieth birthday and four months before her suicide, Plath wrote “A Birthday
Present.” This poem expresses her severe depression and desire to kill herself. She writes, “I
do not want much of a present, anyway, this year / After all I am alive only by accident / I would
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have killed myself gladly that time any possible way / Now there are these veils, shimmering like
curtains” (13-16).
The poetry written during these months continued to demonstrate her spiraling depression
with sullen and morbid themes. Finally, in January of 1963 Plath wrote “Lady Lazarus” weeks
before her death. In the poem, a woman attempts suicide several times and Plath claims “dying
is an art” (43-44). The title of the poem is a biblical allusion to Lazarus, a figure whom Jesus
resurrected from the dead. As the poem is also autobiographical, calling herself a “Lady
Lazarus” would indicate she has resurrected from the dead. This is what she likely believed of
her own suicide attempt. Her wish to die that she expressed in this poem was fulfilled in
February 1963 when she “sealed up the doors of her children's rooms with damp towels, turned
the kitchen gas oven on, thrust her head inside, and ended her life” (“Mushrooms” 121).
The failure of her marriage, in large part due to Hughes’ infidelity, had a serious effect on
Plath’s mental state. This likely cause the frustration and despair she felt about her identity as a
woman. Plath’s poetry emphasizes her feminist views and her aggravation with the social
conception of women. Plath wrote “Mirror” during the early 1960s, which is considered a time
period marked by cultural obsession with youth and beauty (“Mirror” 119). In the poem, a
woman looks into the mirror searching for “what she really is” (11). The old woman, once a
young girl, “rewards” the mirror with tears. This demonstrates both women’s need for a defined
identity as well as the frustration over aging and the conception of beauty experienced by women
in the 1960s. The 1960s is also thought to be the beginning of “women’s attempts to achieve
equality with men” (“Mirror” 119). “Mirror” expresses Plath’s anger with the idea that a
woman’s beauty is determined by her ability to appeal to men. The mirror is “important” to the
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woman in the poem and the appearance she sees cause “agitation of hands” (14). Plath is
commenting on the unnecessary anxiety social pressures cause women.
As her poems continued to be published, Sylvia Plath emerged as a strong voice in the
feminist movement of the 1960s. Her ideals are apparent in her poems “Lady Lazarus” and
“Mushrooms,” which both expose Plath’s internal struggle with her identity as a woman. The
primary theme of Plath’s poem “Mushrooms” is “the unexpected power of small and seemingly
insignificant things, as symbolized by the growth of mushrooms” (“Mushrooms” 120). Writing
from the perspective of a mushroom, she says, “Nobody sees us” (7) and describes the plant as
“perfectly voiceless” (16). Plath uses mushrooms to symbolize women, oppressed and hidden.
“Lady Lazarus” offers a similar outlook; Plath attributes her wish for death to the
oppressiveness of men. The poem concludes with a radical feminist notion “Out of the ash / I
rise with my red hair / And I eat men like air” (81-83). These poems were celebrated in the early
1960s as a powerful expression of women’s rights.
As seen in “Daddy,” “Mirror,” “Mushrooms,” and “Lady Lazarus,” the death of
Plath’s father, her own mental illness, and her ideas of feminism shaped her poetry and
career. Doris Eder describes Plath’s poetry as “intense descriptions of extreme states of mind.”
These descriptions of death and loss are directly related to the mental volatility and oppression
Plath felt throughout her life. Her struggle with identity and her obsession with death are purged
in her poems, particularly those written in the months before her suicide. Robert Lowell called
her a racehorse, one who encountered hurdles throughout her life. Her poems are what
kept her galloping until she finally met a hurdle she could not overcome: death.
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Works Cited
"Daddy." Poetry for Students. Vol. 28. Detroit: Gale, 2008. 64-80. Gale Power Search. Web. 11
Mar. 2014.
Eder, Doris L. "Plath, Sylvia (1932–1963)." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online, 2014.
Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
Looser, Devoney. "Sylvia Plath: Overview." Feminist Writers. Ed. Pamela Kester-Shelton.
Detroit: St. James Press, 1996. Gale Power Search. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
"Mirror." Poetry for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski and Mary Ruby. Vol. 1. Detroit:
Gale, 1998. 115-131. Gale Power Search. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
"Plath, Sylvia." Gale Contextual Encyclopedia of American Literature. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale,
2009. 1308-1312. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 9 Mar. 2014.
"Plath, Sylvia." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Grolier Online, 2014. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
“Sylvia Plath.” Poetry Foundation, 2014. Web 23 Mar. 2014.