Breaking Down Plath. Patricia Grisafi
I was a sophomore in high school, I couldn't wait to study Sylvia Plath. I had been reading her work on my own for years and was excited to finally get the chance to dig in with my teacher and fellow students. In the massive Modern American Literature textbook, though, there was only one Plath poem: “Mirror.” It's a fine poem, but it's short and safe; it doesn't ruffle any feathers. Our teacher discussed its themes, talked a little bit about Plath's life, and mentioned that she “died young.” That was it.
I couldn't believe it. In a classroom where we studied at least ten Robert Frost poems and seemingly everything Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, couldn't we at least read one more Plath poem? (No disrespect to Mr. Frost and Mr. Emerson, of course.)
Today, Sylvia Plath is everywhere. Her name has its own connotation—we associate “Plathian” with anything dark, witty, and shocking. You can buy Sylvia Plath magnets for the fridge and Sylvia Plath socks for a cold night. Plath quotes make good T‐shirt designs. There is an Instagram account dedicated to fans who have gotten Plath tattoos. Lady Gaga and Lana Del Rey, among other musicians, have referred to her in their songs. A 2003 movie was made about her starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Plath is also often mentioned in films focused on teenagers. For example, in Spider‐Man: Homecoming (2017), MJ (played by Zendaya) is wearing a Plath T‐shirt. It functions as a shortcut to understanding MJ's personality: She's a little morbid, no‐nonsense, and into female empowerment.
While Sylvia Plath is now so well‐known she's actually become commoditized, it wasn't always that way. When she died, she was not a household name—not even close. It wasn't until the posthumous publication of Ariel that she became iconic. Over the years, the ways we approach Sylvia Plath's work have shifted, which allows her reputation as an integral writer in American literature to grow. Despite the near‐mythological status she now occupies across film, fashion, and digital media, Plath was first and foremost a woman who wrote. Plath viewed herself as a writer from a young age, and her identity intertwined with writing for her whole life. In a journal entry she wrote at age seventeen, Plath called herself “the girl who wanted to be God”—a phrase that speaks to her ambitious nature.
Plath had many identities—some contradictory. She was a dutiful daughter who also struggled to liberate herself from her family. She was a hard‐working and brilliant student who enjoyed parties and fashion. She was an expatriate—an American who moved to England. She was a wife who wanted to get out of her husband's shadow. She was a mother who wanted to be seen as both a loving parent and a successful career woman. And she was a person who lived with mental illness and died by suicide.
Plath has always spoken to young people, people who feel disenchanted with their world, people who feel deeply and are passionate about life, who feel like they don't belong. She taps into our rage and our joy in a unique way. When I was that disappointed high school student who wanted more Plath and less Emerson, I wondered why the teachers kept her from us. Was she too intense? Too taboo? Not appropriate for high school students? Why did we read The Catcher in the Rye and not The Bell Jar?
It turns out Plath is more than appropriate—she is necessary. In our contemporary moment, which shares many uncomfortable commonalities with Plath's World War II and Cold War upbringing, Plath's voice is more urgent than ever. For those struggling with mental health issues, she reminds us that we can choose how to define ourselves and our disabilities. For those angry about the prevalence of rape culture, she reminds us that our voices matter and that they can give us power. For those who feel like they don't belong, she reminds us that we can find our people. She reminds us that the personal is still political, that the political is also personal.
Chapter 1 Who Was Sylvia Plath?
PLATH'S CHILDHOOD
Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 27, 1932, to Aurelia Schober Plath and Otto Plath. Aurelia was a second‐generation American of Austrian descent, and Otto was an immigrant from Germany. Otto's German heritage would play a huge role in Plath's self‐conception as a middle‐class New Englander.
Aurelia was a teacher, and Otto was a professor who specialized in bees. He even wrote an influential book, Bumblebees and Their Ways (1934). Sylvia had a brother, Warren, who was two years younger. This would be their family unit until Otto Plath's untimely—and ultimately preventable—death when Sylvia was eight.
Otto Plath suffered from diabetes but ignored his condition until his leg had to be medically amputated. Afterward, his health plummeted, his amputation became infected, and he died of complications due to diabetes. Otto's death would haunt Sylvia for the rest of her life.
Sylvia would later write about how idyllic her childhood had been until her father's death in the essay “Ocean 1212‐W”: “And this is how it stiffens, my vision of that seaside childhood. My father died, we moved inland. Whereon those nine first years of my life sealed themselves off like a ship in a bottle—beautiful, inaccessible, obsolete, a fine, white flying myth.” Ultimately, her father's death would shape Sylvia's relationships with men, religion, politics, and herself, and would be the basis for some of her most powerful poetry.
After Otto's death, Aurelia moved the family away from its home in the seaside town of Winthrop, Massachusetts, inland to the suburbs of Wellesley. There, Sylvia lived in a multigenerational home with her maternal grandparents. Aurelia always managed to make ends meet, but the family had to be frugal. Aware that she wasn't as financially privileged as other children in the neighborhood, Sylvia—already showing signs of precocious intelligence—became an overachiever and a perfectionist. She spent most of her middle and high school years winning academic awards and accumulating scholarships.
A SCHOLARSHIP GIRL
Plath started at prestigious Smith College in 1950 on a scholarship sponsored by writer Olive Higgins Prouty. Plath was keenly aware of class stratifications at the elite, all‐women's college. She put intense pressure on herself to be perfect. Writing in her journal on October 1, 1957, Plath addresses a “demon” who is in reality her “murderous self” who demands perfection: “Not being perfect hurts,” she writes. “This is the month which ends a quarter of a century for me, lived under the shadow of fear: fear that I would fall short of some abstract perfection: I have often fought, fought & won, not perfection, but an acceptance of myself as having a right to live on my own human, fallible terms” (Unabridged Journals, 2000, p. 618).
This need to be perfect is a personality characteristic, but it's also a value very much encouraged during Plath's life. Throughout the 1950s, as we will learn further in the next chapter, in Plath's social circles there was a lot of stress on appearances and conformity—especially for women. Sylvia, always a savvy observer of double standards, participated in many of the rituals of college life at this time while criticizing them in her writing. She went to formal dances, had many dates and friends, and immersed herself in studies and activities. Well‐liked, incredibly bright, and fiercely ambitious, Sylvia Plath looked like she had everything going for her.
But mental illness is insidious. For someone with a predisposition to depression, as Plath had, it can feel like everything is wrong and will never get better. Mental healthcare was much less sophisticated in the 1950s than it is today, and conversations about mental health in general were often conducted in hushed tones, as if struggling with one's emotions was something about which to be ashamed. The stigma of mental illness prevented many people from getting the proper treatment. Women especially, who often were dismissed by male doctors, felt disempowered when it came to medical care, especially gynecological and psychiatric care.
Plath grappled with suicidal ideation and feelings of depression and worthlessness for most of her adult life. Her mental health struggles formed some of her most powerful poems. An understanding of Plath's mental health—and how she conceived of it—is valuable to any study of her work, but we need to be careful not to pathologize her or her poetry.
THE RISKS OF READING AUTOBIOGRAPHICALLY
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