The Struggles of Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was born in Boston on October 27th, 1932. Plath is a well-known, celebrated American poet. She was bound for glory, as since a very young age she found success, already publishing poems at the age of only eleven. Plath had also received scholarships as a result of her exceeding intelligence, and entered the best universities, where her career would only flourish. However, her personal life is not anywhere near as radiant and delightful as the side of her life the world knew best.

Part of the darkness in her life was in the form of her father. Her mother worked at the University of Boston, where she met Plath's father, Otto Plath. He was a strict man. When Plath was only eight years of age, she lost her father to complications involving diabetes. This lead her and her family into a period of economic turmoil. It also lowered Plath into a state of depression. 

Furthermore, her husband, Ted Hughes, who she married in 1956, had left her for another woman in 1962. Their children were left in her hands. This only worsened her depression.

On this ever darkening road to self-destruction, she was motivated, through the loss of her husband and father, and her relationship with both men, to write a collection of poems, collectively named 'Ariel.' It consists of some of her most infamous works. One of them, perhaps the most famous, is 'Daddy,' a poem which describes her strange relationship with her father through a mouthful of figurative speech and metaphorical language. The opening lines depicts Sylvia Plath's life around her father. 

You do not do, you do not do

Any more, black shoe

In which I have lived like a foot

For thirty years, poor and white,

Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

The poem has been described as a confrontation between the father, taking the part of a giant and evil Nazi, and Plath herself, taking the part of a Jew and a victim. However, through this poem, it is as if she gets revenge. She claimed that she's killed both her father and the model of her father - her husband. This poem shows her struggle to declare that, no matter how terrible her father was, she is now through with him, as the last line so clearly illustrates.

Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

This poem, among many others, are perfect depictions of the struggles that plagued  Sylvia Plath's life, and ultimately lead her to end it by her own will.