Volume I Issue I January 2021

Name of Author : Sagarika Kotoky

Title of the paper : A Play with Death: Syllvia Plath Foreshadowing Death through her Poems

Abstract: There are many people who go through severe depression without any help. This was also what happened to Sylvia Plath, but being an artist, Plath turns to poetry telling her readers about the pain and suffering she was in. Being a confessional poet, Plath tells her readers about her life which seems to be fine at first where she writes about nature and her love for art itself but during the last days of her life and in the last collection of poems that she wrote, Plath’s writings focused more on her suicide attempts and her obsession with death itself. Death for her is something inevitable but it seems that she cannot wait long enough to reach the end. This paper will talk about Plath and her infatuation with death with reference to ‘Daddy’, ‘Lady Lazarus’, ‘A Birthday Present’, ‘Tulips’ and ‘Medusa’. All of these poems are taken from her last collection of poems, Ariel 1965 which was published posthumously. The theme and motifs of these poems are similar and these poems are read as something that Plath wrote in order to make her readers know about her miseries and the reasons for her suicide attempts and eventual death. Her poems are read as a premonition of yet another suicide attempt where she will finally succeed.

Keywords : depression, suicide, sadness, mental health, death

DOI :

Page No. : 57-61