Throughout the years preceding her father’s death, Plath moved with her family and maternal grandparents. For eight years she lived in Wellesley. She was a brilliant student. She achieved A’s in school, joined numerous clubs, and took music lessons. (Barnard 15) Through high school she focused on writing and made it evident what her future would hold - writing. She was an admitted perfectionist and once said: “I have erected in my mind and image of myself - idealistic and beautiful. Is not that image, free from blemish, the true self - the true perfection?” (Barnard 16) Many have felt that her feelings are a part of her destruction and that her warped sense of perfection would threaten her life later.

In August 1950 at the age of eighteen Plath’s first short story, “And Summer Will Not Come Again,” was published in Seventeen. The following November they published “Ode to a Bitten Plum,” one of her poems. (Bernard 16) Yet her first nationally published poem was “Bitter Strawberries” (Biography 90) between the years 1940 and 1941 in a Boston newspaper. (Butscher, chronology page)

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After graduating from high school, Plath attended Smith College, a well-know women’s college in Massachusetts. She studied hard, wrote and became more depressed. After confessing to her mother her wish to die, she began electroshock therapy. Plagued with brief insomnia before, she was forced to stop the therapy because it became a continuous occurrence.

After a stressful summer-internship with Mademoiselle, on August 24, Plath isolated herself in her basement and proceeded to take a bottle of sleeping pills. With an unsuccessful attempt to end her own life, Plath was taken to a psychiatric hospital to recover. After her brief stay she returned to Smith College to graduate Summa Cum Laude in May 1955. (Contemp. Authors 354)

After graduation, Plath was accepted to Cambridge University. While in England, Plath met the British poet, Ted Hughes, in March of 1956. Four months later they were married and on April 1, 1960, Frieda Rebecca Hughes was born, their first child. The following spring Plath began to work on her novel, The Bell Jar. (Barnard 22) The novel was finished on August 22, 1961. The semi-autobiographical novel was about the events of 1953: her attempt of suicide and her breakdown. (Biography 91) Her first book of poems, The Colossus, had been unsuccessful in England when it had been published. In May she received word that her poems were going to be published in America. She found out later that spring that she was pregnant again. (Barnard 22) Nicolas Farrar Hughes was born in 1962 and The Colossus was finally published in America. Soon though, Plath and Hughes began to have problems. Hughes was

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having and affair and they decided it best to separate at the end of the summer. Plath began writing every morning for four hours a day with her motto: “a poem a day before breakfast.” Finally, the news that made everything depressing and stressful in her life more bearable came. Her novel was to be published.

The following months Plath began to get sick. After moving the children to London with her the weather took a turn for the worse and she was shut off from the outside world. On February 22, 1963 while her children slept, Sylvia Plath turned on her oven and placed her head in it. She had finally succeeded in her mission to end her life.

Even after her death his former wife tormented Hughes. The woman he had had an affair with killed herself the same way Plath had. Although he published many of her poems that she had never been able to, he was still blamed for her death. In 1998, Hughes died of cancer. (Biography 119)

Since her death, Plath has grown extremely popular. During her life her poems never gained much favor. Her largest accomplishment was winning the Pulitzer Prize after her death in 1982. Now with an almost cult following, Plath is more popular than ever.