Plath - biography
Born 1932 in Boston
Male-dominated world
Expectations of women: wives, homemakers, mothers – passive roles
The perfect “all-American girl”, modest and virginal
Unmarried women labelled “unfeminine”
Virtues of hard work and education
Father died when she was eight – haunted her
Difficult financial situation –moved away from her house by the sea (end of idyllic childhood)
Plath struggled to escape ideal of perfection
Letters home to mother => complex relationship, always trying to impress and win approval
Through poetry, she attempted to create a new identity that broke cultural limitations
Difficulties in getting published outside of women’s magazines and books
Married Ted Hughes (famous English poet) whom she met while studying at Cambridge (scholarship)
A turbulent relationship
Was conscious of living in his shadow
Moved back and forth from England to USA, never feeling quite at home
Suffered from depression and received psychiatric treatment (EST) – attempted suicide in 1953
German ancestry – controversial use of Holocaust imagery in Daddy to represent women’s suffering– fear of being tainted by her origins
Obsession with Cold War and nuclear threat – concerned for the safety of her children
Hughes had affairs and couple split in 1962
2 children: Frieda and Nicholas
1961 miscarriage – affected her badly
October & November 1962 – most prolific, personal and intense period of writing (40 poems in total)
Collection rejected by publishers
Was on anti-depressants
Monday, February 11, 1963: tucked her children into bed, read them a bedtime story, left glasses of milk by their beds, went downstairs and committed suicide by gas inhalation from the cooker
Her life, death and poetry continue to be the subject of much controversy
Male-dominated world
Expectations of women: wives, homemakers, mothers – passive roles
The perfect “all-American girl”, modest and virginal
Unmarried women labelled “unfeminine”
Virtues of hard work and education
Father died when she was eight – haunted her
Difficult financial situation –moved away from her house by the sea (end of idyllic childhood)
Plath struggled to escape ideal of perfection
Letters home to mother => complex relationship, always trying to impress and win approval
Through poetry, she attempted to create a new identity that broke cultural limitations
Difficulties in getting published outside of women’s magazines and books
Married Ted Hughes (famous English poet) whom she met while studying at Cambridge (scholarship)
A turbulent relationship
Was conscious of living in his shadow
Moved back and forth from England to USA, never feeling quite at home
Suffered from depression and received psychiatric treatment (EST) – attempted suicide in 1953
German ancestry – controversial use of Holocaust imagery in Daddy to represent women’s suffering– fear of being tainted by her origins
Obsession with Cold War and nuclear threat – concerned for the safety of her children
Hughes had affairs and couple split in 1962
2 children: Frieda and Nicholas
1961 miscarriage – affected her badly
October & November 1962 – most prolific, personal and intense period of writing (40 poems in total)
Collection rejected by publishers
Was on anti-depressants
Monday, February 11, 1963: tucked her children into bed, read them a bedtime story, left glasses of milk by their beds, went downstairs and committed suicide by gas inhalation from the cooker
Her life, death and poetry continue to be the subject of much controversy