| BIOGRAPHY OF SYLVIA PLATH |
| Sylvia Plath was born on 27 October 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts to Otto and Aurelia Plath. Two and a half years later Warren Joseph Plath was born and to Sylvia it was an intrusion in her life. In 1936 the Plath family moved to Winthrop Massachusetts. Otto’s health began to fail but he refused to see a doctor having already self-diagnosed himself as having lung cancer. Otto Plath died on 5 October 1940, just nine days after Sylvia’s eighth birthday. Otto had suffered from diabetes mellitus and later gangrene, he was poorly and died after developing bronchopneumonia. Her father’s death made a huge imprint upon Sylvia’s imagination that did not fade, his life and death was her central obsession from the beginning to the end of her life and career. After Otto’s death Sylvia fell back on defences that were neurotic in nature and intensity to cope with the trauma. She also had greater dependence on her mother for emotional security but it was to prove an unhealthy relationship, may of her feelings for her mother were repressed. Also “The idea of poetry cannot be dismissed as a defence mechanism, to a child poetry is an instrument of fantasy and it is no coincidence that her poetry began not long after her father’s death”(Butscher, 1976). Sylvia entered the Winthrop public school system in 1938 maintaining a straight ‘A’ profile from the very start, impressing her teacher’s with her intelligence and dedication. At eight and a half she had her first poem published in the Boston Sunday Herald, it was just the start of a great talent. In an interview Sylvia said that her life was “sealed” off from the age of 7 and her adolescence was “not too happy” which caused her to become “introverted” and was the reason she wrote “diary” poems between the ages of nine and sixteen/seventeen. After Otto Plath died the family experienced many financial difficulties. Aurelia struggled to support her children from the money she earned teaching at a local college, to reduce costs she asked her parents and brother to move in. They moved away from Winthrop for good in 1942 and Aurelia bought a home in Wellesley, Massachusetts. In a way Sylvia lost her childhood through her father’s death and moving house. The new environment of Wellesley was home to Sylvia from the ages of nine to eighteen, it was the time for her writing to grow and develop and was to help shape her life. The attitudes of the environment played a large part in her early poetry and stories, and was forcefully attacked in “The Bell Jar”, her autobiographical novel. This environment provided the essential moral and social framework for her entire life. She maintained her straight ‘A’ profile and left a lasting impression on all those who knew her. One of her teachers from Winthrop said she was a “beautiful child, very intelligent, interested in everything, did excellent work”. Sylvia was a normal girl but wounded so badly by the death of her father whom she adored. In 1950 Sylvia had her first story published in “Seventeen” titled “And Summer Will Not Come Again”. Later the same magazine published her poem “Ode on a Bitten Plum”, and many other stories and poems were published in magazines and newspapers in the years to follow. Aurelia Plath did all she could to ensure Sylvia and Warren had “high achievement” childhoods. They attended summer camps, scouting, sailing, piano and viola lessons, dance “assemblies”, painting and watercolour lessons and more. Sylvia had an ideal adolescence but it failed to produce a secure, well-rounded adult. She was perceived by her teachers as being a bright, creative, happy and talented person but was somewhat isolated amongst her classmates. She felt a struggle and was divided between the seeming incompatibility between social and intellectual roles. She was a perfectionist and this was to cause many problems throughout her life. Her peers described her as “a loner” and “a daydreamer”, she often retreated from the world into her own private universe. Aurelia often too Sylvia and Warren to a tiny local library and if nought else Sylvia’s childhood gave her a deep and abiding respect for books and their authors. Sylvia exhibited a very creative ability in being able to express herself so well both verbally and in writing. The picture of young Sylvia shows one of a child prodigy at work with has the tact and literary insight of an older person. Through her poetry Sylvia was able to release her secret anxieties and fears. An IQ test undertaken in 1943/44 showed Sylvia had an IQ of 166, this categorised her as a genius. Such intelligence was both a curse and a blessing on her entire life and as she said “there is no escaping the mind”. At High School she was clearly destined for success, possessing great talent and she had a compulsive attention to detail in everything she wrote. However, her guidance counsellor said she was “just too brainy” and her straight ‘A’s’ without proper extra-curricular activities would “snap her into a void”. So Sylvia proceeded to enter into a wider circle of friends and broaden her range of activities. In Sylvia’s last six months at High School she received news that she had won a scholarship to Smith College in Northampton. She had doubts about leaving Wellesley, and being parted from her mother for the first time and being isolated from the security of home. Sylvia knew well enough though that activity was the trick and that she should never stop long enough to let the depression set in so she put all her energy into her summer job picking strawberries on a farm to distract herself from the separation that was to come. Smith College started off as a small institution for girls, attracting some of the richest and most socially prominent young ladies but also some of the most neurotic. Fierce academic and social competition caused constant tension occasionally leading to nervous breakdowns and suicides. By the time Sylvia entered the college, as an English major, it had grown vastly in size and was highly ranked. It was at her dorm that Sylvia met Marcia who was the opposite, positive self she inevitably needed for support and some normality in her life. Marcia was able to help Sylvia from slipping over the edge during one her manic-depressive episodes and it was a warm relationship that was to last the rest of Sylvia’s life. |
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