Breaking Down Plath. Patricia Grisafi
as several scholars have done in the past. However, as Plath studies evolve, we now understand that reading Plath's work from a solely autobiographical perspective poses problems and closes off the work from its larger contexts. We must always think of Plath as a writer who used autobiographical elements in her work and transformed them into art. In short, her real‐life experiences informed her art—but are not necessarily the only aspects of the writing itself.
While Plath mined her life for inspiration, her work stands on its own. Plath never intended to write an autobiography; she carefully chose poetry and fiction as her medium with a few short essays written toward the end of her life. “Rather than assume that Plath is an unusually autobiographical writer,” Plath critic Susan R. Van Dyne notes, “we need to understand that she experienced her life in unusually textual ways. In her letters and journals as much as in her fiction and poetry, Plath's habits of self‐representation suggest that she regarded her life as if it were a text she could invent and rewrite” (Van Duyne, 1993, p. 5). Plath kept journals. She composed letters. She wrote fiction. She crafted poetry. She was familiar with all mediums and made artistic choices fitting to each one. To only read Plath as an autobiographical writer would be to miss out on the myriad layers in her work. Therefore, readers should bear in mind the distinction between the speaker/narrator and the author when reading, and refrain from pathological narratives and unfounded mental health diagnoses.
A TURNING POINT
In 1953, Plath's life took a series of twists that would ultimately lead to a suicide attempt. Aside from academic success (Plath was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and also learned she would be the editor of the Smith Review for her senior year), Plath won a guest editorship position at Mademoiselle magazine, which she held during the summer at its New York City offices. She and other winners were put up at a women's‐only hotel, The Barbizon, and were expected to fulfill their duties as well as put forward a positive face representing the magazine while touring the city.
Plath drew inspiration from this experience in her only published novel, The Bell Jar (1963). Aside from the novel, some letters, and scant journal entries, we don't know a lot about this time during Plath's life from Plath's own perspective. However, once she finished her editorship, returned home, and received a rejection from a Harvard University writing program she desperately wanted to take, her mental health seemed to take a dive.
Facing a long stretch of summer vacation at home with her mother and nothing to look forward to, Plath fell into a deep depression that was so severe it had physical effects. Unable to sleep, read, or write, Plath reached out for help. Her mother took her to a male psychiatrist, and that psychiatrist gave her improperly administered electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). In The Bell Jar, Plath would compare the experience to how one must feel being electrocuted and tortured. This event would haunt Plath and her writing for the rest of her life, coming up again and again as an image and metaphor in her poetry.
Plath's condition continued to deteriorate. On August 24, 1953, Plath consumed a bottle of pills and hid in a crawlspace in the basement. She was unconscious for two days, during which an exhaustive search took place throughout the greater Boston area. Her disappearance made the newspapers: “Beautiful Smith Girl Missing at Wellesley,” read the headline of The Boston Daily Globe. “Mrs. Aurelia S. Plath, of 26 Elmwood Street, said her daughter apparently left the house at 2 p.m., leaving a note saying she was ‘taking a long walk’ and would ‘be back tomorrow.’”
Plath was found in the crawlspace with injuries to her face from hitting her head. She was treated and hospitalized at McLean Hospital, a private hospital in Boston renowned for its psychiatry program. Plath's Smith College benefactor Olive Higgins Prouty helped pay for most of Plath's care. Prouty herself had suffered a nervous breakdown and could relate to Plath's struggles. As part of her treatment, Plath received regular therapy sessions, which she found beneficial, with Dr. Ruth Barnhouse Beuscher. She received ECT again, but this time it was administered correctly and actually helped Plath's depression. Plath's work with Dr. Beuscher gave her the tools she needed to manage her mental health and eventually return to school. The two of them would remain in contact for the rest of Plath's life.
Figure 1.1 Plath at the beach, 1954.
Source: Bridgeman Images
After her recovery, Plath threw herself back into college life with fervor—and started to hone her skills and develop the poetic voice that would earn her a respected place in American literature. She finished her college education with high honors and received a Fulbright Scholarship, which would allow her to study English at Newnham College, Cambridge University. She would seek further education abroad, which was not the norm for women during this time.
As an American in England during the 1950s, Plath experienced culture shock—her brash Americanness sometimes uncomfortably set her apart. Acquaintance Jane Baltzell remembered Plath seemed “totally unaware of how her American behavior and talk seemed rather comic to the British” (Wilson, 2013, p. 292). However, she was also exposed to new poets who greatly influenced her—including her future husband Ted Hughes. She had to adjust to a new way of life, a new educational system, and a new set of expected behaviors.
MEETING TED HUGHES
When Sylvia met Ted Hughes in 1956, he had published a few poems in university publications and already was garnering a reputation for powerful and violent poetry about the natural world and human relationships. When the two first met in 1956 at a wild party famously recounted in Plath's journals, she recited bits of his poetry to him. Then, they passionately kissed and Hughes snatched Plath's headband and earrings: “I was stamping and he was stamping on the floor, and then he kissed me bang smash on the mouth and ripped my hairband off…and when he kissed my neck I bit him long and hard on the cheek” (Unabridged Journals, 2000, p. 212).
Plath believed she had finally met her equal—someone who was smart, strong, creative, and passionate about writing—but the relationship was often volatile. They married after four months in a quiet ceremony and kept the marriage secret (Plath was worried she might lose her Fulbright if the marriage was discovered). The marriage was exceptionally literary from the get‐go. Plath and Hughes settled into a routine of writing and reading each other's work. Much of the time, however, Hughes would write and Plath would act as his secretary, sending out his poetry. He even won an important poetry contest that he didn't know Plath entered on his behalf. However, Hughes did support Plath's writing goals and encouraged her to write. In this way, the two had a more equitable artistic partnership than most.
In the 1950s—even in progressive artistic circles—there was still a sense that men dominated the world of work. Mostly, women were relegated to a more domestic experience: providing support for their husband, taking care of the home, and raising the children. It might be seen as a bonus to have a clever wife who would write sometimes. But Plath bristled against losing her identity as a writer to household drudgery.
In 1957, Plath and Hughes moved to back to the United States to pursue jobs in education. They settled in Massachusetts, and Plath began teaching English at her alma mater, Smith College. Although she was regarded as a good professor, Plath felt that teaching took her away from achieving success as a writer. Both she and Hughes decided to dedicate themselves to writing from then on and only take jobs that could allow them to focus on that goal. At this time, Hughes' poetry collection The Hawk in the Rain had been well received by American poets, and Plath and Hughes were invited to mingle with Boston's literati.
Plath took two part‐time jobs and began auditing classes in Boston taught by well‐regarded and eccentric poet Robert Lowell. This class exposed Plath to yet another kind of writing: “confessional” poetry. Confessional poets like Lowell, John Berryman, and Allen Ginsberg wrote about their personal experiences in explicit terms, often breaking social taboos by writing about sexuality, trauma, or addiction in the first person. Lowell's poetic use of