Essay on The American Dream Gone Wrong in the Works of...

Much of Sylvia Plaths poetry and her only novel, The Bell Jar, reflect her feelings of mental instability. Plath grew up in Massachusetts and was an intelligent and successful writer at a young age. She was living an American dream. However, her idyllic life was more like a nightmare for Sylvia Plath. She drove herself hard; it was important to her to succeed. When she began to doubt herself and the world around her she became mentally ill. Sylvia Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts on October 27,1932, to Aurelia and Otto Plath. Mr. and Mrs. Plath were both from Germanic backgrounds. Mr. Plath was a professor of biology and German at Boston University who liked discipline and order in his home. According to Mrs. Plath, the day†¦show more content†¦She studied piano and viola and was a Girl Scout. She also won many awards for her writing and art in junior high and high school. While she was proud of her accomplishments and wanted to be successful, Plath was also worried about her social life (Barnard 15-16). When she was in tenth grade, her English teacher read several of her poems out loud in class and was very praising of them. Plath was very proud of this but was worried about its effect on her popularity. She decided that she was different and, therefore, she must try hard to appear normal. She still had trouble in high school, though: The girls guidance counselor diagnosed my problem straight off. I was just too dangerously brainy (Stevenson 1-2). Another problem that she faced was the extremely high goals that she set for herself, sometimes so high that she set herself up for failure. She wanted to be the best at everything that she did. She was always sending her work off to publishers, but was often rejected. She viewed herself as a failure when she did not reach her own expectations. She was overjoyed when one of her short stories, And Summer Will Not Come Again, was published in Seventeen magazine (Barnard 15-16). I was just too dangerously brainy. -Sylvia Plath -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was not until she was at Smith College that she became moreShow MoreRelatedSylvia Plath: Research Paper2682 Words   |  11 PagesWit, I Have No Words, No Tears Sylvia Plath’s life story could be considered tragic as she was monopolized by a severe depression yet expressed her sorrows through enlightening words in her many poems. The death of her father when she was only eight years old commenced her lifelong despondency and insecurities. In the poem â€Å"Daddy†, she speaks of how she never fully understood him and blames him for the emptiness she feels without a father. As time moved on, Plath discovered her writing talent while