special thanks

special thanks to: coffee- for keeping me awake, junk food- for energy as well, neopets- for distracting me, Ms. Sackstein-for the help and, me- for doing the work

Reflection

Going into this assignment i though it was going to be a piece of cake. You do a little research, A little typing and boom, a good grade. But i was dead wrong. It was tough. Between the long hours of research, the planning, organizing and writing, I was dead tired after this was all over. The easiest part was then i went to sleep AFTER i finished. The hardest part was everything. I think I did everything well and i could probably use improvement on revision. I still would have chose this because i HATE essays and blogs are sort of okay.

statment of process

1. I did tons upon tons of research on Sylvia Plath learning everything about her
2. I compiled a list of topics to work on about her. I added and took away topics until i got 10 good topics to work on
3. I typed my butt off and corrected things along the way
4. For every post i did i thoroughly checked it for errors.
5. After every post i cracked my knuckles so that i may do the next one
6. I wrote my statement of process and reflection
7. Ms. sackstein will see it and give me a good grade (i hope).

Timeline line of Sylvia poems

1956Conversation Among the Ruins Winter Landscape, with Rooks Pursuit Bucolics Tale of a Tub Southern Sunrise Channel Crossing Prospect The Queen's Complaint Ode for Ted Firesong Song for a Summer's DayTwo Sisters of Persephone Vanity FairStrumpet Song Tinker Jack and the Tidy WivesFaun Street Song Letter to a PuristSoliloquy of the Solipsist Dialogue Between Ghost and Priest The Glutton Monologue at 3 AM Miss Drake Proceeds to Supper Recantation The Shrike Alicante LullabyDream with Clam-DiggersWreath for a BridalEpitaph for Fire and FlowerFiesta Melons The BeggarsThe GoringSpiderSpinster RhymeDeparture Maudlin Resolve Landowners Ella Mason and Her Eleven CatsCrystal GazerNovember GraveyardBlack Rook and Rainy Weather

1957The Snowman on the MoorMayflowerSow The Everlasting Monday Hardcastle Crags The Thin People On the Difficulty of Conjuring Up a DryadOn the Plethora of DryadsThe Other TwoThe Lady and the Earthenware HeadAll the Dead Dears Natural HistoryTwo Views of WithensThe Great CarbuncleWords for a NurseryThe Disquieting MusesNightshiftOuijaOn the Decline of OraclesSnakecharmerA Lesson in Vengeance
1958Virgin in a Tree PerseusBattle-Scene from the Comic Operic Fantasy The SeafarerYadwigha, on a Red Couch, Among LiliesA Winter's TaleAbove the Oxbow Memoirs of a Spinach-PickerThe Ghost's LeavetakingSculptor Full Fathom Five LoreleiMussel Hunter at Rock HarborMoonriseFrog AutumnIn Midas' CountryIncommunicado Child's Park StonesOwlWhiteness I RememberFable of the Rhododendron StealersThe Death of Myth-MakingGreen Rock, Winthorp BayThe Companionable IllsI Want, I WantPoems, PotatoesThe Times Are Tidy

1959The Bull of BendylawThe Eye-mote Point ShirleyGoatsucker Watercolor of Grantchester MeadowsA Winter Ship Aftermath Two Views of a Cadaver Room Suicide Off Egg RockThe Ravaged FaceMetaphors Electra on Azalea PathThe Beekeeper's DaughterThe Hermit at Outermost HouseMan In Black Old Ladies' HomeThe Net-MendersMagnolia ShoalsThe Sleepers Yaddo : The Grand Manor MedallionThe Manor Garden Blue MolesDark Wood, Dark WaterPolly's Tree The Colossus Private Ground Poem for a Birthday
Who
Dark House
Maenad
The Beast
Flute Notes from a Reedy Pond
Witch Burning
The Stones
The Burnt-out Spa Mushrooms
1960You'reThe Hanging Man Stillborn On DeckSleep in the Mojave Desert Two Campers in Cloud CountryLeaving Early Love Letter MagiCandles A LifeWaking in Winter

1961Parliament Hill FieldsWhitsun Zoo Keeper's WifeFace LiftMorning Song Barren Woman Heavy WomanIn Plaster Tulips I Am Vertical InsomniacWidow Stars Over the DordogneThe Rival Wuthering HeightsBlackberrying FinisterreThe Surgeon at 2 a.m Last WordsThe Moon and the Yew TreeMirror The Babysitters

1962New Year on Dartmoor Three Women Little FugueAn Appearance Crossing the Water Among the Narcissi Pheasant Elm The Rabbit CatcherEvent Apprehensions Berck-Plage The Other Words heard, by accident, over the phonePoppies in July Burning the LettersFor a Fatherless SonA Birthday Present The DetectiveThe Courage of Shutting-UpThe Bee Meeting The Arrival of the Bee Box Stings The Swarm Wintering A SecretThe Applicant Daddy Medusa The JailerLesbos Stopped DeadFever 103 Lyonnesse AmnesiacCut By CandlelightThe TourAriel Poppies in October Nick and the Candlestick PurdahLady Lazarus The Couriers Getting ThereThe Night Dances GulliverThalidomideLetter in November Death & Co. YearsFearful Mary's Song Winter Trees Brasilia Childless Woman Eavesdropper

1963Sheep in Fog The Munich Mannequins Totem Child Paralytic Gigolo Mystic Kindness Words Contusion BalloonsEdge

(All sited from http://www.stanford.edu/class/engl187/docs/plathpoem.html)

Timeline on Sylvia Plath's life

October 27, 1932- Sylvia Plath was born in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts, United States

April 1935- Plath's brother Warren was born

1936- Plath’s family moved to Winthrop, Massachusetts

November 5, 1940- Otto Plath (Sylvia’s father) died

1942- Plath moved to 26 Elmwood Road in Wellesley, Massachusetts

June 1955- Graduated from Smith with honors

June 16, 1956- met English poet Ted Hughes They got married on St George the Martyr Holborn

July 1957- Plath and Hughes lived and worked in the United States

1960- Plath moved back to England after learning she was pregant

February 1961- Plath had suffered a miscarriage.

late 1962- Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes seperated. Returns to london with kids.

February 11, 1963- Plath dies of suicide (affixation) in London, England, United Kingdom.

Simulated Children Accounts to Mother’s Death Years Later

Our mother death has left a gaping hole in our hearts. For we don’t know why she left us she had her reasons. It is up to us to take where she left on as being apart of her. We were small and couldn’t understand the ramifications of her death but seeing how this points to conflict between her and father, we are at a crossroad. All we can really do is use her works and book and live our life. Also, though we know not well of our mother we do know that we love her dearly and that was mutual on both sides…

skit of Sylvia Plath Suicide plot (fictional)

Ted Hughes: Sylvia what is wrong with you women...whats with all of these poems what the hell do u want from-
Sylvia Plath- What do I want...Hmmmm....How about you be a better Husband and allow me to write whatever I want
Ted: Oh yeah so the whole damn world can see what type of Psychopath you really are...
Sylvia: ...so that's what you think about me...i see
Ted: Ever thought of writing something good for a change...you really give me a bad-
Sylvia: Oh so that's what it comes back to.....you...you,you,you that's all the matter
Ted: You are a suicidal nut case....
Sylvia: ...You know this isn't really working out now is it?
Ted: I can care less....if you want to leave the kids motherless....you do that, I swear you can be a huge pain in the ass sometimes.
Sylvia: *Leaves room* *Goes to write in Journal"
Journal: I can see when I'm not wanted....Tomorrow is the day i die...I will put my head in a oven and slowly kill myself...just like my husband is killing be with his words...

mimic poem

You were there

no matter what

through the hell

and the problems that came with it

and like a slap across the face you were gone

a face full of blood

where the tears were suppose to be

i thought my love was like a titanium fortress

strong and durable able to withstand anything

but it turned out to be nothing but restricting and painful

It is my own fault though

i knew not of what I was doing

I thought I'd bring you happiness

I brought you pain

I thought I'd bring you joy

I engulfed you with sadness and shame

I know we will always be friends

through and through

i just wish i had another chance

to prove that i'm not a pathetic idiot

I do what i do because that is me and only me

I just wish you could see beyond that...the type of person I can be

If just given a second chance...

Knowing that Sylvia Plath's poems are depressing and always having to do with her life I decided to make a poem on my own based on my own life. Something that happen recently, and that effected me greatly. I tried to use strong language in order to persue a strong lasting point.

eulogy on Sylvia Plath

In the memory of Sylvia Plath we saw her as a kind loving women. Her poems influnced a generation in a positive way even though her poems were negitive and pestimistic. She had her own personal reasons for her poem but so many poets today (including me) use her work to cadapult their way into major poets. She had a loving family, A hushand and 2 kids. Nobody know why she took her life but it doesn't matter. She will be dearly missed. Her poems will be albumed and her novel will be cherished to us. Knowing that she will always be in our hearts.

Poem comparision-"Words Heard, by Accidnet,over the phone"- Text to self

Words heard, by accident, over the phone
O mud, mud, how fluid! ---
Thick as foreign coffee, and with a sluggy pulse.
Speak, speak! Who is it?
It is the bowel-pulse, lover of digestibles.
It is he who has achieved these syllables.

What are these words, these words?
They are plopping like mud.
O god, how shall I ever clean the phone table?
They are pressing out of the many-holed earpiece, they are looking for a
listener.
Is he here?

Now the room is ahiss. The instrument
Withdraws its tentacle.
But the spawn percolate in my heart. They are fertile.
Muck funnel, muck funnel --
You are too big. They must take you back!

Sylvia Plath

This poem relates to me because I had a friend who was pretty much "emotionally scared for life" after this situation. His girlfriend came to his house and she asked to use his phone to call her mom. But he was speculating that she was with another guy and thought that she was lying about being on the phone with her mom. So he picked up another phone to spy on the call. He was right and he found out that she was with another guy. but I guess words like "I love you" and "Can't wait to go on our date and then you come to my place" would specify that. He later confronted her, They got into a fight and she later left him for the other guy, but when the other guy found out about the first guy, he broke up with her. So in the end everyone lost, which indirectly effected everyone. 

poet comparison- Edger Allen Poe & Sylvia Plath

Though from different backgrounds, Sylvia Plath and Edger allen Poe have simular styles of writing. Their poems are of the gothic type, Usually relating to their life or other people in their life. They are both deep and meaningful. One uses old complicated language and one hones in one's emotion with complicated language as well. Both are noted as great author of there own time and both are used today as forms of inperation. They have books that have recieved awards and known as classics today.

poem analysis-sylvia plath-daddy

Daddy


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.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.You died before I had time---
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been sacred of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You----

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two---
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

Sylvia Plath



I believe that this poem was used to convey the thought of her father in such a negative aspect. Not only that but to demean him and make him seem like dirt. Her life must have been affected by him so much that it drove her to have a certain, different aura about him. One that goes above hate, an evolution of sorts. The relations to him being of a Nazi, calling him a bastard, and a devil could be the sign of physical, mental, or psychological abuse but abuse all the same. Also she states that she wanted to kill him...but she never got the chance which entices the hate for him and makes it stronger and deeper.

journal entry on sylvia Plath first suicide attempt

This is it... I'm through. I've been happy...just to decieve and convey the mind of the weak. I want everybody to think im happy...I mean I dated a senior who was so awesome. But he got tuberculosis...that made me so sad. Well, I went to visit him because i cared about him and while I was skiing i broke my damn leg. But i did it out of a suicide attempt. People will believe anything if you say it the right way. But guess what, I got a job as a guest editor at Mademoiselle magazine. The good thing about that was that i spent a month in New work. That made me happy....well you could say that. But well I started to feel incomplete as a human being. as if something was lacking. But I have no idea what it was. Then later on i started to find different crap about my self to look down apon. I was hurt inside, I cried, why, i don't know...i just did. I felt it was time to go. I got a bunch of sleeping pills, crawled under my house and gulped, gulped until i felt sleepy but......somehow i lived...i have no idea why...i made some poems because of that situation. It was in my best interest that I was to get some theorpy for that. So i did, but all they had was electroconvulsive theorpy. And for some reason Olive Higgins prouty, the person who gave me my scholorship, paid my medical expences. I later recovered and graduaded with honors...