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How Did Sylvia Plath Write The Bell Jar

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“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.” -Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar. In a world where works of art aren’t as appreciated like they used to, Sylvia Plath still stood out in our contemporary society as throughout her life, her poems has aspects of hope in them and during her life, feminism started to burn through the world and important factors played into her style of writing, featuring her father, relationships, and mental health. Imagine the time where poems shined brightly and was still appreciated compared to today’s society. This is where Sylvia Plath comes in, a dynamic woman from the twentieth century who was admired for her underrated work as she wrote confessional poetry, which was personal individual experience on moments of her life. Her work still has meaning and messages in them that lives up to today’s standards (“Sylvia Plath”). Her poems feature a numerous amount of themes like victimization in a male-dominated society, patriarchy which society was characterized by their gender norms, and death, a common …show more content…

When Plath was eight years old, her father died of diabetes, even though, it was a curable disease during the time period they lived in. Otto had been a strict father with his authoritarian attitude, his death and attitude is what changed Sylvia’s poems, notably in her infamous poem, “Daddy”, an elegiac and dark poem written on October 12, 1962, with multiple different metaphors to describe the relationship she had with him (“Sylvia Plath”). Everything about Sylvia Plath screamed potential as when she was young, she was ambitious and driven to succeed and when she was eleven, she had kept a diary throughout her

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There once was a little girl, she had long hair and big eyes; and she loved to play outside in the dirt. At the age of six her mother told her to go inside and play with the dolls, that she would get hurt playing outside. Society taught her that a woman’s job was to take care of a family and raise children of her own one day; she was taught the world was not a place for her. Despite the instilling of this message in many girls, few managed to speak out against it; one of these few was Sylvia Plath. In Sylvia Plath’s work, her deeply rooted emotions and resistance to authority often led people to perceive her as pompous.

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I really liked Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. Plath did an outstanding job making the main character seem like a real person with real struggles that I feel many people could, in some way, identify with. Sure, I’m not a young woman trying to make it in New York, but I can relate quite a bit to Esther. I can relate to the fact that she got a important internship and moving away from home, because, though to a lesser extent, I moved to college here because I got my scholarship. I can relate to how Esther feels like she is not truly like anyone else, but somewhere in the middle.

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1960 Words | 8 Pages

Elizabeth Barrett Browning does, in fact, stand out as a key figure in the poetry that challenged the gender norms of her day. Her father encouraged her to grow up in an intellectually stimulating environment, which set the groundwork for her academic interests and writing career. She overcame serious health issues, nevertheless her intelligence and willpower helped her succeed as a poet and use her position to speak out in favor of women's rights and intellectual freedom. This essay examines how her poetry promoted women's social, emotional, and intellectual independence by challenging and overturning gender stereotypes written during the Victorian era. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's worldview and aspirations as a writer were greatly influenced by her upbringing.

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548 Words | 3 Pages

Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar In this summer vocation, I have read THE BELL JAR. It talks about a girl named Esther Greenwood who loves writing poems. When she was 19, she gets a scholarship to college and wins a prize here and there to make a chance practising in a periodical office in New York.

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‘Plath perceives the domestic life as restrictive and a complete obliteration of her own self-worth’. Using ideas of feminist theory from the critical anthology to inform your argument, to what extent do you agree with this view? As a female poet subject to 1960’s patriarchy, Plath’s domestic and professional claustrophobia were inevitable. Married to the successful poet, Ted Hughes, she was incessantly reminded of the artistic restraints assigned to equally talented females.

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1003 Words | 5 Pages

Sylvia Plath is known as a confessional poet by many because she refers to different people that were close to her during her lifetime in many of her poems. “Daddy” is mostly connected to her father because she creates many allusions that link to her father’s private life. The structure of “Daddy” is unique to Plath’s situation of a deceased father because the word “you” is used very many times throughout each of the stanzas, and this makes the poem sound like a confrontation. By including connections between the speaker’s father in “Daddy” and Sylvia Plath’s own father, she creates the effect of talking directly to her father with the family voice of “you.” Plath includes references to her father’s death in her poem, as well as allusions to the cause of his death and his daughter’s young age when she experienced his death.

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1205 Words | 5 Pages

In the poem “Tulips” written by Sylvia Plath, the protagonist indicates the affect that restrictions placed upon her by society have. She feels her domestic duties as a woman are a burden on her and tries to - metaphorically-

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Plath states that it was her mother who killed her father and that her mother was the one who conflicted all of the negativity in their relationship. Later on in life Sylvia Plath was blessed with two wonderful children. After they were born she wrote a poem called “Morning Song”. Her personal memories are hidden in metaphors of parenthood in her poetry. Soon the infants arrives in an ungrateful world.

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504 Words | 3 Pages

The Voice of Darkness : Sylvia Plath “Let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences” was the mantra of famed writer Sylvia Plath.("The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath Quotes") Plath is one of the darkest and depressed poets of all time, but that does not mean she is a bad writer. I will tell you all about her life, writing, and the legacy she left behind.

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838 Words | 4 Pages

“Daddy” by Sylvia Plath is a daughter’s overdue words to her dead father. As a vessel for the speaker’s emotional outbreak, the poem alternates among her idolation and fear, and her love and rejection for him, feelings that she constantly struggles between. The work reveals the destructive nature of the memory of the speaker’s father, and portrays her final attempt to break free of its shadow. The poem is one big apostrophe directed at the speaker’s dead father, and in doing so she regresses into her childhood self.

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934 Words | 4 Pages

Nothing epitomizes an edgy early teen phase like a healthy obsession with Sylvia Plath. She was one of the first poets to bear personal issues as subject matter, and it continues to touch people of all ages who relate to her struggles and love poetry that digs deep into personal issues. The question is, what were her lasting effects on the culture of American literature? In Plath’s widely revered and often discussed poem, “Daddy,” she grapples with a conflicting view of her father.

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526 Words | 3 Pages

“Poetry Is Not a Luxury” (1982) intertwines feminism and poetry together. Author Audre Lorde says that for women, “poetry is not a luxury, but a necessity of our existence” (Lorde, 1982, pg. 281). In today’s society, women’s opinions aren’t really expressed, because it’s not widely accepted in this man-built world. Lorde’s quote “poetry is not a luxury, but a necessity of our existence” means that women should use their voices and channel their energy into poetry. Since poetry is accepted, women aren’t being deviant.

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1755 Words | 8 Pages

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is a semi-autobiographical novel in which Plath relays her own experiences through protagonist Esther Greenwood by highlighting the struggles she faced in navigating societal expectations, depression, and her own desires. Having spent time in college and later in multiple mental health institutions, Plath tells her story through Esther in a way that blends fiction and reality. Through Esther, we see Plath’s own interpretations of her triumphs, failures, values, and the slow but seemingly inevitable diminishment of her mental health. The story starts with Esther Greenwood in New York City, where she is spending a month working at a magazine because she won a scholarship to a special summer program for female writers.

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1082 Words | 5 Pages

The portrayal and role depicted in the literature helped women in the long run to gain acceptance and equality in society. The literary contributions made and for women continue to be a springboard for women to gain equality to men. Finally, the accomplishment of these women writers who struggled to publish their fragile poems and stories could spread a template for other women around the word on how they can actually voice out their thoughts and help improve their own rights. Thus, women will continue to gain equality and recognition, and this success will also continuously impact the

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922 Words | 4 Pages

The way that Sylvia Plath presented the image of women in her poems drawattention of many to the problem of patriarchy and overshadowing the importance of the female role in the society. She was a great poetess and a literary revolutionist in a female world. By combining irony, extendedmetaphors and a great use of language she was able to show the inequality and the dominance of man over woman in the society. She showed that even as, according to the society,a comparatively weak personcould fight for the right cause with her firmest weapon,her extraordinary style of writing. She revolutionised the world of poetry and presented women as a very strong part of the society capable of accomplishinggreat things.

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