Sylvia Plath Cause Of Death – Why did Sylvia Plath Kill herself?
Table of Contents
Profile Summary
- Name: Sylvia Plath
- Year of Birth: 1932
- Birthplace: Boston Massachusetts, US
- Nationality: American
- Ethnicity: White
- Height: N/A
Sylvia Plath was born in Boston Massachusetts, US, on October 27, 1932. She started her career in poetry at the age of eight, and while in high school, she participated and won many literary debates.
Education
In 1951, Plath entered Smith college on a scholarship. A year after, she was part of the winners of the Mademoiselle magazine fiction contest.
She graduated from Smith College with honors before proceeding to Newnham college in Cambridge, England.
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Career
Sylvia Plath published her first poem when she was eight years old and sold it to the Christian Science Monitor. Plath got a job at Smith College as an English instructor in 1957.
Collection of Plath’s poems both published and previously unpublished poems include:
- Ariel (1965) – Includes; Daddy, Lady Lazarus
- Crossing the water (1971)
- Winter Trees (1971)
She also wrote many books such as The It-Doesn’t-Matter Suit published in 1996, the novel The Bell Jar, and many others.
Marriage to Ted Hughes
Plath got married to English poet Ted Hughes in 1956. The couple were blessed with two children, Frieda and Nicholas.
Hughes and Plath separated in 1962 after Hughes’s extra-marital affair.
Sylvia Plath’s Cause of Death
Plath committed suicide on 11 February 1963 after the end of her marriage to Ted Hughes. She was 30 years old.
Her autopsy revealed that she died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
The poet reportedly put her head in the oven at around 4:30 am after making sure the poisonous gas couldn’t pass through to her children.
Plath had sealed the room where her two children, Frieda who was four years old at the time, and one-year-old Nicholas slept with cloths, tape, and towels.
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Why did Sylvia Plath Kill herself?
Plath left a suicide note of only four words. Her note said, “Please call Dr. Horder”.
Doctor Harder’s phone number was also written in the note stirring a debate that the note couldn’t have been a suicide note but a call for help.
Sylvia Plath tried to take her own life prior before her death, in 1953, Plath overdosed on pills at her mother’s house, and also tried to kill herself when she drove her car into a river.
Aftermath of Sylvia Plath’s death
Sylvia Plath was clinically depressed after her husband Ted Hughes left her for his mistress, Assia Wevill.
Unfortunately, tragedy befell Hughes in March 1969, six years after the death of Sylvia Plath When Assia Wevill killed herself and their four-year-old daughter, Shura.
Assia Wevill reportedly took sleeping pills and gave her daughter some sleeping pills before putting on the gas stove.
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She took a bed into the kitchen while the gas stove was on and slept in it with her daughter.
Hughes however met Carol Orchard soon after and got married in 1970.
In October 1998, Ted Hughes died of Myocardial Infarction (Heart Attack) aged 68 in London, England.
46 years after the death of Sylvia Plath, her son Nicholas Hughes committed suicide on 16 March 2009. Nicholas was only 47 years old.
