Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was an American writer who only published one book in her lifetime which is famously known as The Bell Jar, but Plath has many famous letters, journals, poetry, short stories, and children's books that were published after her death in the early 1960s. Sylvia Plath played a significant role in literature during the 20th century and her legacy still stands here in the 21st century. Some of her published poems include “Daddy,” “Lady Lazarus,” “Mad Girl’s Love Song,” “Tulips,” and “Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Sea.” There are over 42 Sylvia Plath published works and most of them surfaced after her death. 

Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932, to her mother Aurelia Schober and father Otto Plath. Quickly after her father Otto's untimely death, when Sylvia was just 8 years old, she fell into a state of depression and in some ways remained in that same state until her death on February 11th, 1962 at the age of 30. Her cause of death was suicide. 

Self-harming was not a common thing for women, or really anyone during her lifespan, so when Plath’s novel became popular, she helped to spread awareness of this issue and this is part of the reason why this issue is taken so seriously today, even when she is not here to see her effects on women's mental health. Sylvia Plath would infer her own struggles in her novel and poems, writing about various topics exploring her own mental health, her troubled marriage with fellow poet Ted Hughes, and other challenges in her life. These topics also included the traumas of her past as she openly discussed her mental health struggles at the age of 10 and 14 when she was struggling the most with self-harm. 

Today Sylvia Plath is well known around the world as a famous literary icon but when you dig deeper she is so much more than that. She was a feminist and a mental health advocate, and without most of us even recognizing it, she has had a huge effect on our daily lives.