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Plath, Sylvia

Born in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston, Massachusetts, on October 27, 1932, Sylvia Plath has been described as an extremely important voice of her generation. As a poet and writer, she received numerous awards for her work throughout her lifetime and after her death. Beginning in her teenage years, she wrote a vast amount of poetry and prose, publishing much of this work in literary and popular magazines. In addition to her early publications, her main contributions are The Colossus and Other Poems (1960); Ariel (1965); Crossing the Water (1971); Winter Trees (1972); The Bell Jar (1963); Letters Home by Sylvia Plath, Correspondence1950–1963 (1975); Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams and Other Prose Writings (1977); and The Collected Poems (1981). Her literary contributions began early in her life and continued as she finished her undergraduate work at Smith College and went on to complete a second bachelor's degree (on a Fulbright Fellowship) at Cambridge University.

Struggle between Writing and Motherhood

Given the period in which she was a student and young woman, she was consistently confronted with challenges that many women faced at the time. Becoming a wife and mother largely reflected a woman's success and accomplishments; and while her work as a writer and poet were central to her definition of self, so too were her aspirations to find a good husband. Her poetry, prose, journal entries, and letters to her mother, Aurelia Plath, point to this ongoing conflict she had with her definition of self. On the one hand, she wanted a loving husband and children; and on the other hand, she was extremely ambitious and committed to her writing. Her intense academic years at Smith College reflect the relentless work and hours she committed to her development as a writer.

This conflict between her ambitions for both a family and a career as a writer was addressed in her writing and poetry and consistently emerged throughout her early years of marriage with Ted Hughes, an up-and-coming poet. In these years, she reflected on these conflicting roles—that of wife, mother, and writer—querying her literary and successful friends on these subjects. Linda Wagner-Martin relays a conversation Plath had with her friend Adrienne Rich in Sylvia Plath: A Literary Life: “Sylvia asked Rich, whose children were small, whether she thought a woman could both write and bring up children—to which Rich answered, ‘Yes, but it's hellishly difficult.’ Rich's sense of Sylvia at the time was that she was Ted's wife first, and a poet only after.”

Turbulent Life

Her role as wife and mother rather than writer became increasingly more clear as her husband became more successful. Further, while Hughes shared some of the responsibility of childcare and received grants and other income from writing that they managed to live on in their early years together, Plath dealt with a number of practical issues that made it difficult for her to write, including childcare and housework, many months of writer's block and other problems with confidence as a writer, and financial concerns when neither she nor Ted were making a steady income.

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