Sylvia Plath, A Suicidal Mind

A mother of two, a wife to Edward Huges, a woman who went through a miscarriage directly followed by a major surgery and a thirty one year old who committed suicide by gas. This is the life of Sylvia Plath, a very severely depressed but brilliant poet. In 1962, the year before her death, her husband Huges had cheated on her. During this year she was feeling very lonely and had a terrible outlook of herself. The yearning for death became more and more of a possibility to her. In a book entitled Letters Home by Sylvia Plath, she wrote to her mother to reveal her feelings. Also during this time in her life she had wrote many poems. Two poems, which show signs of her suicidal tendencies and depression, are “A Birthday Present”, written on September 26, 1962 and “The Arrival of the Bee Box” written on October 3 1962. These two poems along with Sylvia’s writings in her letters reveal to the reader what kinds of feelings she had throughout the last full year of her life. Throughout the poems “A Birthday Present” and “The Arrival of the Bee Box” Plath shows signs of a low self-esteem. When describing a box in, The Arrival of the Bee Box she uses descriptions of disfigured people, “…it was the coffin of

Also, in this poem she reveals the clearest images of what will come of her future, and it was written less than a year from the time that she killed herself, ""the clouds are like cotton. She faced money issues, members of her Christian family turning on her due to the separation in the marriage, and her children growing up without a family. Finally at this time in her life she is realizing that suicide can still be an option and a way out of life. Plath describes what loneliness is like for her in the "Arrival of the Bee Box". She ended her misery the only way she thought she could by suicide on the morning of February 11, 1963. Along with a poor self-image she showed signs of loneliness. She knows that she is the one and only one who makes the decision whether to live or die. In "The Arrival of the Bee Box" she explores her power of giving and taking away life, "They can die, I need feed them nothing, I am the owner," (213). Some one who depends so much on identification and being in touch with others around them cannot exist alone. So, when Plath is deprived of the love she once had surrounding her Holbrook suggests it will immediately be followed by desperate acts. In a letter to her mother she gives a horrifying description of her-self, "Just now I am a bit of a wreck, bones literally sticking out allover and great, black shadows under my eyes from sleeping pills, a smokers hack". A way out so as not to face the hardships that her husbands adultery will cause her. A midget or disfigured baby is someone who is considered different from the norm and ugly by members of society.