Before she reached her teens, Sylvia Plath began writing and publishing poetry. It was because of her impressive work that she attended college early, won a guest editorial in a popular magazine, and was awarded a Grant to study at the famous London school, Cambridge. Despite her evident giftedness, Plath struggled deeply with mental issues that resulted in purposeful isolation and eventually attempted suicides. Nearly concurrently, her husband left Plath with her two children for another woman, and she received final rejections for her now famous novel, The Bell Jar. Her family was so ashamed of how she passed that they labeled it as virus pneumonia. After her death, her works such as her poetry collection Ariel and her novel The Bell Jar rapidly gained popularity until she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1982. To bring up Sylvia Plath without discussing her audience would be a great mistake. Women of all ages, when they read Sylvia Plath’s work, feel as though she is targeting them with her words and them only. Sylvia’s plath soul as a whole, with its darkness and desire, gives girls and women alike a mirror to look in and feel emotions often associated with shame without guilt.

Plath’s works with themes of death are often the most popular amongst her audience due to the dark undertones and overflowing desperation for saving between the lines, a common feeling amongst many who suffer from extreme mental issues similar to Plath. “Lady Lazarus” is one of those special poems that have captured the eyes of many due to its ties to both religion and death. Using the character Lazarus from the Bible, whom Jesus resurrected, she compares resurrection to her attempts and continuously pushes to her readers the desire of oblivion. Once the dark layout of this poem has been laid out, she begins chastising the “peanut-crunching crowd”, a direct finger pointed at the people watching her suffer as if it were a show put on for them.

Another reason Plath seems to speak to young, troubled women so much is because of her relatable uncertainty about her future and life. She has all the desire and drive one could want, but she finds herself incapable due to her gender and mental issues. On a page of Sylvia Plath’s novel “The Bell Jar”, she wrote what is now known as the famous “Sylvia Plath Fig Tree Theory.” Throughout this, she discussed how her life was like a tree with branches sprouting in every direction and figs at each end representing opportunities and futures to aspire to. Examples of these figs would be an overachieving professor guiding the youth, a successful poet profiting from artistry, and a caring mother with a loving husband. However, with all these ripe and beautiful chances, she cannot help but sit near the roots of the plant and starve, as she cannot bring herself to eat one, or take that chance, as that will make her full and she will not be able to consume the others. Because she cannot decide which one she wants because she wants them all, she watches as the figs wrinkle and eventually fall to the ground, inedible.

Sylvia Plath is more than her mental issues, as known by her countless adoring fans. One trait that often goes less discussed is her feminist aspirations and values. Plath lived during the early to mid-nineteenth century, experiencing the feminist movement through the lens of a mistreated housewife and a woman attempting to enter the professional male-dominated world of authors. Feminism, more relevant in the media than ever, has used Sylvia’s words for their movement, and this is for a good reason. She discussed how, during her time, being a woman was a tragedy. Harboring desires to be everything and anything at the same time, she wished to be able to be friends with men, labor in male-dominated fields, and live her life freely without fearing the opposite gender. However, she had to accept that this would never happen, which led to her losing her spark and love for life.

When February eleventh hits this year, it will have been sixty-three years since Sylvia Plath left this world. It is important to give significance and value to the work she left behind, but more importantly to mourn the work that could’ve been made. She had a beautiful life ahead of her, but rejection and betrayal left her believing she didn’t. Our minds are beautiful no matter how troubled, so let’s not forget to appreciate that.