• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
 
Kilinc 1
Ali Kilinc – 900235909 – Literary Analysis Essay [RESEARCH]: Draft #6 [FINALREVISED]Ms. Rebecca AlexanderENG 193: Literature & Composition – 10:30AM – 4042328 May 2009 Topic #1: Focus on how the author’s [Sylvia Plath] work influenced the text
Sylvia Plath: A Great Depression
Almost every prominent author and poet in the history of modernliterature has had his or her writing heavily influenced by life changingevents. Sylvia Plath, one of the highly praised poets of the twentieth century,was also an author who was influenced to write because of the events thathappened in her life. She suffered immense difficulties in her life, regardlessof what obstacle that faced her. Similar to many authors, Sylvia Plath’swriting was mainly influenced by the depression that affected her. Inessence, her poems and stories have inspired, and continue to inspire,countless people, and have broken new ground in literature. Her semi-autobiographical writing style pioneered the writing form known today assimply “confessional poetry”. This endless depression wrecked havoc on herpersonal life, especially her marriage, while at the same time being aninstrument in the creation of her extraordinary gothic-styled writing, whichcan be observed from her poems “Daddy”, “Tulips”, and “Lady Lazarus”.
 
Kilinc 2
Sylvia Plath suffered all through her personal life. Ironically, her lifebegins in the Great Depression. This somewhat reflects upon the start of herlife-long battle with depression. One of the main sources of her depressionwas due to the death of her father. Like a horrendous present, exactly oneweek after Sylvia Plath’s birthday, her father died. According to the LiteraryEncyclopedia, this was while she was at a dreadfully young age, eight, to beexact (“Sylvia Plath” 2). Unfortunately, she was never able to fully overcomethe pain associated with her father’s death, and so it haunted her for theremainder of her life. This emotional impact on her writing can be observedin many of her poems, specifically in her acclaimed poem “Daddy”.Sylvia Plath continued to have a highly disturbed life from then on,which turned unrelentingly rocky every time she tried to overcome anemotional challenge. According to
People
magazine, she even experiencedproblems in her marriage with Ted Hughes, a seemingly compatible partner,being a fellow poet (Jerome, Richard, et al. 141). Throughout her life, sheattempted suicide, and this emotional trauma also reflected her work,specifically in her poem “Lady Lazarus”. To add to her suffering, SylviaPlath’s horrendous husband institutionalized her. Her institutionalizationcombined with other medical “issues” led Plath to reflect upon her emotionsin a poem called “Tulips”. Furthermore, she became highly distressed whenshe found out that her husband was cheating on her. Sylvia Plath was neverable to fully recover from the pain that Hughes had inflicted upon her. Sheseparated from her husband the year she wrote “Tulips”, and the pain that
 
Kilinc 3
she infused into the poem was an element of her suicide, which occurredonly four months later. One must understand that her painful life filled withsuffering did not dissolve in vain, but it spurred and inspired much of herwriting.While the writing of many authors may have been affected via theirlife, this influence goes beyond merely inspiration for others. As stated byKennedy, Plath’s poems have not only been affected by her life, but themeanings of some of her poems have also been slightly distorted due to herdepression (Kennedy 1511). One must note that Sylvia Plath started writingapproximately the same time as her father’s death. Her writing only maturedas she grew older, and increased with emotional force. The more pain shefelt, the more she sensed as if she needed to express that pain. As shesuffered, her desire to convey her emotions exponentially magnified.Eventually, her depression grew so intense that her poems evolved intoconfessions obviously filled with gothic themes of pain, suffering, and death.She also wrote withan obvious semi-autobiographical theme. Herunrelenting use of such poetry has given her the title of creating thepioneering literary movement of “confessional poetry.” The poem written by Sylvia Plath called Daddy was greatly affected byher depression. In many ways, her father’s death built a foundation for herwriting. Many years after the death of her father, Sylvia Plath finally decidedto channel her entire struggle to overcome her father’s death in her poem“Daddy”. This feeling of not being able to let go is observable in the line “You
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...