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Suicide and Creativity: The Case of Sylvia Plath

Made a connection between mental illness and creatives.

The Sylvia Plath Effect: Mental Illness in Eminent Creative Writers

Coined the term "The Plath Effect" and inspired my paper.

From the Sylvia Plath Effect to Social Justice: Moving Forward With Creativity

Gave perspective on how ideas can change and grow to become the opposite of what they once were.

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1962

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Death: Death is the most prevalent theme in Sylvia's work. This is most likely influenced by the loss of her father and her struggle with mental illness.

Victimization: Sylvia often wrote about how she felt victimized by men and by what society expected from her as a woman. This is mentioned in "Daddy" as well as shown in her relationship with Ted Hughes.

Motherhood: Plath wrote often about how she felt about motherhood. She felt that pregnancy was simply a "means to an end". This is shown in "Edge"

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The Colossus and Other Poems (1960): Her first published book of Poetry. This put her on the map as a fresh American voice in poetry.

The Bell Jar (1963): This partially biographical work was initially blocked by Plath's mother. She worried that it would paint her daughter in a negative light as it detailed her many struggles with depression.

Ariel (1965): Published Posthumously, this was Plath's second book of poetry. Ariel contained more personal poems that detailed her life before her suicide.

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The London Apt Where She Died

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Her Childhood Home

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Sylvia Plath was born on October 27th 1932 in Boston Massachusetts.

Sylvia's father Otto died when she was eight years old. This impacted Plath greatly. The pain and loss she experienced would go on to deeply influence many aspects of her life. Her grief and anger inspired most of her writings. Arguably her most popular poem called "Daddy" is a testament to this.

In 1950 Sylvia entered Smith College in Northampton MA on a scholarship.

She excelled in her academics, even being called "the golden girl" by her teachers.

In 1953 after winning a fiction contest in a magazine called "Mademoiselle" she became a guest editor. This brought her to New York.

Her experiences in this job and in New York went on to be the inspiration for her novel "The Bell Jar"

After her graduation from Smith she won a Fulbright scholarship to Cambridge University where she would meet her future husband Ted Hughes.

They would marry in 1956.

By 1963, after her two children were born, she discovered that Hughes was cheating on her. They were divorced the same year.

She cared for her two children in a small apartment in London. Here she struggled daily with her mental health. It was the coldest winter that London had had in years.

She killed herself on February 11th 1963. Before doing this, she put out a plate of buttered bread and two mugs of milk for her children.

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The special thing about this photo of Sylvia is that it is not one you'd expect to see when you think of her. She is know first for her emotional work, and second for her tragic suicide. Almost every photo I have seen of Sylvia reflects this, usually in black and white. I think that this is unfair to her.  I would like to think of Sylvia as she is in this photo, happy and smiling.

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Read By Sylvia