Editing Sylvia Plath (section)

==Biography==
===Early life and education===
Plath was born on October 27, 1932, in [[Boston]], Massachusetts.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/sylvia-plath |title=Sylvia Plath – Poet &#124; Academy of American Poets |publisher=Poets.org |date=February 4, 2014 |access-date=March 9, 2018 |archive-date=February 4, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170204042226/https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/sylvia-plath |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="ODNB">{{Cite ODNB|id=37855|title=Plath [married name Hughes], Sylvia|last1=Brown|first1=Sally|last2=Taylor|first2=Clare L.|year=2017}}</ref> Her mother, [[Aurelia Plath|Aurelia Schober Plath]] (1906–1994), was the American-born daughter of Austrian immigrants,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Tamás |first=Dorka |date=15 December 2023 |title=Behind the Iron Curtain: Sylvia Plath and Hungary During the Cold War |journal=E-Rea |volume=21 |issue=1 |doi=10.4000/erea.17121|doi-access=free }}</ref> and her father, [[Otto Plath]] (1885–1940), was from [[Grabow]], [[German Empire|Germany]].{{sfn|Kirk|2004|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=NBlJYGHVESwC&pg=PA9 9]}} Plath's father was an [[entomologist]] and a professor of biology at Boston University who wrote a book about [[bumblebee]]s in 1934.<ref name="Axelrod">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Axelrod |first=Steven |date=April 24, 2007 |orig-year=<!--September 17, -->2003 |title=Sylvia Plath |encyclopedia=The Literary Encyclopedia |url=http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3579 |access-date=June 1, 2007 |url-access=subscription |archive-date=October 11, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011063122/http://litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true |url-status=live }}</ref>

On April 27, 1935, Plath's brother Warren was born.<ref name="ODNB"/> In 1936 the family moved from 24 Prince Street in [[Jamaica Plain]], Massachusetts, to 92 Johnson Avenue, [[Winthrop, Massachusetts]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Steinberg |first=Peter K. |year=2007 |orig-year=1999|url=http://www.sylviaplath.info/biography.html |title=A celebration, this is |work=sylviaplath.info |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150319215120/http://www.sylviaplath.info/biography.html |archive-date=March 19, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref> Since 1920, Plath's maternal grandparents, the Schobers, had lived in a section of Winthrop called Point Shirley, a location mentioned in Plath's poetry.

Otto Plath died on November 5, 1940, a week and a half after Sylvia's eighth birthday,<ref name="Axelrod"/> of complications following the amputation of a foot due to untreated [[diabetes]]. He had become ill shortly after a close friend died of [[lung cancer]]. Comparing the similarities between his friend's symptoms and his own, Otto became convinced that he, too, had lung cancer and did not seek treatment until his diabetes had progressed too far. Raised as a [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]], Plath experienced a loss of faith after her father's death and remained ambivalent about religion throughout her life.{{sfn|Peel|2007|pp=41–44}} Her father was buried in Winthrop Cemetery in Massachusetts. A visit to her father's grave later prompted Plath to write the poem "Electra on Azalea Path".

After Otto's death, Aurelia moved her children and her parents to 26 Elmwood Road, [[Wellesley, Massachusetts]], in 1942.<ref name="Axelrod"/> Plath commented in "Ocean 1212-W", one of her final works, that her first nine years "sealed themselves off like a ship in a bottle—beautiful, inaccessible, obsolete, a fine, white flying myth".<ref name="ODNB"/><ref>{{cite book |last=Plath |first=Sylvia |page=130 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/johnnypanicbible0000plat_u9q0/page/130/mode/1up |chapter-url-access=registration |chapter=Ocean 1212-W |isbn=0-571-11120-3  |title=Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams: And Other Prose Writings |date=1977 |orig-year=1962 |publisher=Faber and Faber |location=London }}</ref>

Plath published her first poem at the age of eight in the ''Boston Herald''{{'}}s children's section.{{sfn|Kirk|2004|p=23}} Over the next few years, Plath published multiple poems in regional magazines and newspapers.<ref name="poets1">{{cite web |title=Sylvia Plath |publisher=Academy of American Poets |url=https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/sylvia-plath |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170204042226/https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/sylvia-plath |archive-date=February 4, 2017 |url-status=live|date=February 4, 2014 }}</ref> At age 11, Plath began keeping a journal.<ref name="poets1"/> In addition to writing, she showed early promise as an artist, winning an award for her paintings from the [[Alliance for Young Artists & Writers|Scholastic Art & Writing Awards]] in 1947.{{sfn|Kirk|2004|p=32}} "Even in her youth, Plath was ambitiously driven to succeed."<ref name="poets1"/>

Plath attended Bradford Senior High School, which is now [[Wellesley High School]] in [[Wellesley, Massachusetts]], graduating in 1950.<ref name="ODNB"/> An influential English teacher was [[Wilbury Crockett]] who she referred to as “my own Mr. Crockett.”<ref>{{Cite web |title=Wilbury Crockett |url=https://www.wellesleyfreelibrary.org/wilbury-crockett/ |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=Wellesley Free Library |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Sylvia Plath |url=https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3579 |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=www.litencyc.com |language=en}}</ref> Just after graduating from high school, she had her first national publication in ''[[The Christian Science Monitor]].''<ref name="poets1"/>

===College years and depression===
[[File:Sylvia Plath - The Boston Globe (1953).png|thumb|180px|left|Newspaper clipping, August 26, 1953]]
In 1950, Plath attended [[Smith College]], a private women's liberal arts college in Massachusetts, where she excelled academically. While at Smith, she lived in Lawrence House, and a plaque can be found outside her old room. She edited ''The Smith Review.'' After her third year of college, Plath was awarded a coveted position as a guest editor at ''[[Mademoiselle (magazine)|Mademoiselle]]'' magazine, during which she spent a month in New York City.<ref name="ODNB" /> The experience was not what she had hoped for, and many of the events that took place during that summer were later used as inspiration for her novel ''[[The Bell Jar]]''.<ref name=":0">{{cite web|title=Sylvia Platt|url=https://sophia.smith.edu/blog/smithipedia/alumnae/sylvia-plath-1955/|access-date=June 20, 2021|website=Smith College|archive-date=June 24, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210624204335/https://sophia.smith.edu/blog/smithipedia/alumnae/sylvia-plath-1955/|url-status=live}}</ref>

She was furious at not being at a meeting that ''Mademoiselle'' editor [[Cyrilly Abels]] had arranged with Welsh poet [[Dylan Thomas]], a writer whose work she loved, according to one of her boyfriends, "more than life itself". She loitered around the [[White Horse Tavern (New York City)|White Horse Tavern]] and the [[Hotel Chelsea|Chelsea Hotel]] for two days, hoping to meet Thomas, but he was already on his way home. A few weeks later, she slashed her legs "to see if she had enough courage to kill herself."{{sfn|Thomas|2008|p=35}}{{efn|"On 15 July, when Sylvia came downstairs, Aurelia noticed that her daughter had a couple of partially healed scars on her legs. After being questioned about them, Sylvia told her mother that she had gashed herself in an effort to see if she had the guts. Then she took hold of Aurelia's hand and said: 'Oh, Mother, the world is so rotten! I want to die! Let's die together!'"<ref name="Wilson1">{{Cite news |title=Sylvia Plath in New York: 'pain, parties and work' |date=2 February 2013 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/feb/02/sylvia-plath-young-new-york-andrew-wilson |last=Wilson |first=Andrew |work=The Guardian |access-date=5 October 2023}}</ref>}} During this time, she was not accepted into a [[Harvard University]] writing seminar with author [[Frank O'Connor]].<ref name="ODNB" /> Following [[electroconvulsive therapy|ECT]] for depression, Plath made her first medically documented suicide attempt on August 24, 1953,<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.sylviaplath.info/documents/Steinberg_2010_Search.pdf |title="They Had to Call and Call": The Search for Sylvia Plath |first=Peter K. |last=Steinberg |journal=Plath Profiles |volume=3 |date=Summer 2010 |issn=2155-8175 |access-date=August 16, 2018 |archive-date=June 22, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170622184101/http://www.sylviaplath.info/documents/Steinberg_2010_Search.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> by crawling under the front porch and taking her mother's sleeping pills.{{sfn|Kibler|1980|pp=259–264}}

She survived this first suicide attempt, later writing that she "blissfully succumbed to the whirling blackness that I honestly believed was eternal oblivion". She spent the next six months in psychiatric care, receiving more electric and [[Insulin shock therapy|insulin shock treatment]] under the care of [[Ruth Beuscher]].<ref name="ODNB"/> Her stay at [[McLean Hospital]] and her Smith scholarship were paid for by the author [[Olive Higgins Prouty]], who had also recovered from a mental breakdown.<ref name="Now, Voyager">{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HWjsLMr7ilIC&q=Now%2C+Voyager&pg=PA268| title=Now, Voyager| isbn=978-1558614765| last1=Prouty| first1=Olive Higgins| year=2013| publisher=Feminist Press at CUNY}}</ref> According to Plath's biographer Andrew Wilson, Olive Higgins Prouty "would take Dr Tillotson to task for the badly managed ECT, blaming him for Sylvia's suicide attempt".<ref name="Wilson1" />

[[File:Cambridge Newnham.JPG|thumb|Sidgwick Hall at [[Newnham College, Cambridge]]]]
Plath seemed to make a good recovery and returned to college. In January 1955, she submitted her thesis ''The Magic Mirror: A Study of the Double in Two of [[Fyodor Dostoevsky|Dostoyevsky]]'s Novels'', and in June graduated from Smith with an [[A.B.]], ''[[summa cum laude]]''.<ref name="Kirk-xix" /> She was a member of the [[Phi Beta Kappa]] academic honor society,<ref name=":0" /> and had an IQ of around 160.{{sfn|Butscher|2003|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=PynC8TFoqOYC&pg=PA27 27]}}<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cpc7CJH1-s8C&pg=RA1-PA388 |title=Encyclopedia of Creativity, Two-Volume Set |page=388 |editor1-last=Runco |editor1-first=Mark A. |editor2-last=Pritzker |editor2-first=Steven R. |publisher=Academic Press |date=1999 |isbn=978-0122270758 |access-date=August 31, 2017 |archive-date=October 28, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191028052632/https://books.google.com/books?id=cpc7CJH1-s8C&pg=RA1-PA388 |url-status=live }}</ref>

She obtained a [[Fulbright Scholarship]] to study at [[Newnham College, Cambridge|Newnham College]], one of the two women-only colleges of the [[University of Cambridge]] in England, where she continued actively writing poetry and publishing her work in the student newspaper ''[[Varsity (Cambridge)|Varsity]]''. At Newnham, she studied with [[Dorothea Krook]], whom she held in high regard.{{sfn|Peel|2007|p=44}} She spent her first-year winter and spring holidays traveling around Europe.<ref name="ODNB"/>

===Career and marriage===
[[File:Administration Building, McLean Hospital, Belmont MA.jpg|alt=|thumb|Plath's stay at [[McLean Hospital]] inspired her novel ''[[The Bell Jar]]'']]

Plath met poet [[Ted Hughes]] on February 25, 1956. In a 1961 [[BBC]] interview now held by the [[British Library Sound Archive]],<ref name="Guardian-2010">{{cite web |title=Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes talk about their relationship |date=April 15, 2010 |location=London |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/audio/2010/apr/15/sylvia-plath-ted-hughes |access-date=July 9, 2010 |archive-date=November 11, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141111034317/http://www.theguardian.com/books/audio/2010/apr/15/sylvia-plath-ted-hughes |url-status=live }} Extract from the 1961 BBC interview with Plath and Hughes. Now held in the [[British Library]] Sound Archive.</ref> Plath describes how she met Hughes:
{{blockquote|
I'd read some of Ted's poems in this magazine and I was very impressed and I wanted to meet him. I went to this little celebration and that's actually where we met... Then we saw a great deal of each other. Ted came back to Cambridge and suddenly we found ourselves getting married a few months later... We kept writing poems to each other. Then it just grew out of that, I guess, a feeling that we both were writing so much and having such a fine time doing it, we decided that this should keep on.<ref name="Guardian-2010"/>
}} Plath described Hughes as "a singer, story-teller, lion and world-wanderer" with "a voice like the thunder of God".<ref name="ODNB"/>

The couple married on June 16, 1956, at [[St George's, Bloomsbury]], with Plath's mother as the sole witness. They spent their honeymoon in Paris and [[Benidorm]], Spain.  Plath returned to Newnham in October to begin her second year.<ref name="ODNB"/> During this time, they both became deeply interested in [[astrology]] and the supernatural, using [[ouija]] boards.<ref>Bloom, Harold (2007) ''Sylvia Plath'', Infobase Publishing, p. 76</ref>

In June 1957, Plath and Hughes moved to the United States; beginning in September, Plath taught at Smith College, her alma mater. She found it difficult to both teach and have enough time and energy to write,<ref name="Kirk-xix">{{harvnb|Kirk|2004|p=xix}}</ref> and in the middle of 1958, the couple moved to Boston. Plath took a job as a receptionist in the psychiatric unit of [[Massachusetts General Hospital]] and in the evenings sat in on creative writing seminars given by poet [[Robert Lowell]] (also attended by the writers [[Anne Sexton]] and [[George Starbuck]]).<ref name="Kirk-xix"/>

Both Lowell and Sexton encouraged Plath to write from her personal experience. She openly discussed her depression with Lowell and her suicide attempt with Sexton, who led her to write from a more female perspective. Plath began to consider herself as a more serious, focused writer.<ref name="ODNB"/> At this time Plath and Hughes met the poet [[W.S. Merwin]], who admired their work and was to remain a lifelong friend.{{sfn|Helle|2007|p={{page needed|date=July 2017}}}} Plath resumed [[Psychoanalysis|psychoanalytic]] treatment in December, working with Ruth Beuscher.<ref name="ODNB"/>

[[File:Chalcot Square - geograph.org.uk - 1005457.jpg|thumb|right|[[Chalcot Square]], near Primrose Hill in London, Plath and Hughes' home from 1959]]
Plath and Hughes traveled across Canada and the United States, staying at the [[Yaddo]] artist colony in [[Saratoga Springs, New York|Saratoga Springs]], New York, in late 1959. Plath stated that at Yaddo she learned "to be true to my own weirdnesses", but she remained anxious about writing confessionally, from deeply personal and private material.<ref name="ODNB"/>{{sfn|Plath|2000|loc=[https://archive.org/details/unabridgedjourna0000plat/page/520/mode/1up "October 22 [1959&#93;: Thursday", pp. 520–521]}}

The couple moved back to England in December 1959 and lived in London at 3 [[Chalcot Square]], near the Primrose Hill area of [[Regent's Park]], where an [[English Heritage]] plaque records Plath's residence.<ref name="Kirk-xx">{{harvnb|Kirk|2004|p=xx}}</ref><ref name="London Remembers">{{cite web |title=Plaque: Sylvia Plath |work=London Remembers |url=http://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/sylvia-plath |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160322105555/http://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/sylvia-plath |archive-date=March 22, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> Their daughter [[Frieda Hughes|Frieda]] was born on April 1, 1960, and in October, Plath published ''[[The Colossus and Other Poems|The Colossus]]'', her first collection of poetry.<ref name="Kirk-xx"/>

In February 1961, Plath's second pregnancy ended in miscarriage; several of her poems, including "Parliament Hill Fields", address this event.{{sfn|Kirk|2004|p=85}} In a letter to her therapist, Plath wrote that Hughes [[Domestic violence|beat her]] two days before the miscarriage.<ref name="Kean-2017">{{cite news |last=Kean |first=Danuta |date=April 11, 2017 |title=Unseen Sylvia Plath letters claim domestic abuse by Ted Hughes |location=London |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/11/unseen-sylvia-plath-letters-claim-domestic-abuse-by-ted-hughes |access-date=April 14, 2017 |archive-date=April 15, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200415134707/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/11/unseen-sylvia-plath-letters-claim-domestic-abuse-by-ted-hughes |url-status=live }}</ref> In August she finished her semi-autobiographical novel ''[[The Bell Jar]]''; immediately afterwards, the family moved to [[Court Green]] in the small market town of [[North Tawton]]. [[Nicholas Hughes|Nicholas]] was born in January 1962.<ref name="Kirk-xx"/> In mid-1962, Plath and Hughes began to keep bees, which would be the subject of many Plath poems.<ref name="ODNB"/>

In August 1961, the couple rented their flat at Chalcot Square to [[Assia Wevill|Assia (née Gutmann) Wevill]] and [[David Wevill]].<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/books/1999/apr/10/tedhughes.sylviaplath "Haunted by the ghosts of love"], ''Guardian'', April 10, 1999.</ref> Hughes was immediately struck with Assia, as she was with him. In June 1962, Plath had a car accident, which she later described as a suicide attempt. In July 1962 Plath discovered Hughes was having an affair with Wevill; in September, Plath and Hughes separated.<ref name="Kirk-xx"/>

Beginning in October 1962, Plath experienced a great burst of creativity and composed most of the poems on which her reputation now rests, writing at least 26 of the poems of her posthumous collection ''[[Ariel (poetry collection)|Ariel]]'' during the final months of her life.<ref name="Kirk-xx"/><ref>{{cite web |title=Sylvia Plath |work=The Poetry Archive |url=http://www.poetryarchive.org/poet/sylvia-plath |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170703202957/http://www.poetryarchive.org/poet/sylvia-plath |archive-date=July 3, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath—a marriage examined">[https://web.archive.org/web/20051218022114/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2242/is_1669_286/ai_n13247735 ''Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath&nbsp;– a marriage examined''. From ''The Contemporary Review''. Essay by Richard Whittington-Egan 2005] accessed July 9, 2010</ref> In December 1962, she returned alone to London with their children and rented, on a five-year lease, a flat at 23 [[Fitzroy Road]]—only a few streets from the Chalcot Square flat. [[William Butler Yeats]] once lived in the house, which bears an English Heritage [[blue plaque]] for the Irish poet. Plath was pleased by this fact and considered it a good omen.

The [[Winter of 1962–1963 in the United Kingdom|winter of 1962–1963]] was one of the coldest on record in the UK; the pipes froze, the children—now two years old and nine months—were often sick, and the house had no telephone.<ref name="Gifford-2008">{{harvnb|Gifford|2008|p=15}}</ref> Her depression returned but she completed the rest of her poetry collection, which would be published after her death (1965 in the UK, 1966 in the US). Her only novel, ''The Bell Jar'', was published in January 1963 under the pen name Victoria Lucas and was met with critical indifference.<ref name="Kirk-xxi">{{harvnb|Kirk|2004|p=xxi}}</ref>

===Final depressive episode and death===
Before her death, Plath tried at least twice to take her own life.<ref name="Cooper-2003">{{cite journal |last=Cooper |first=Brian |date=June 2003 |title=Sylvia Plath and the depression continuum |journal=J R Soc Med |volume=96 |issue=6 |pmc=539515 |pmid=12782699 |pages=296–301 |doi=10.1177/014107680309600613}}</ref> On August 24, 1953, she overdosed on sleeping pills;<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-_ROQ1v4l68C&pg=PT205|isbn=9780571266357|title=The Journals of Sylvia Plath|date=February 17, 2011|publisher=Faber & Faber|access-date=October 4, 2021|archive-date=February 10, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220210093521/https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Journals_of_Sylvia_Plath/-_ROQ1v4l68C?gbpv=1&pg=PT205&printsec=frontcover|url-status=live}}</ref> then, in June 1962, she drove her car off the side of the road into a river, which she later characterized as a suicide attempt.<ref>''The Dedalus Book of Literary Suicides: Dead Letters'' (2008) Gary Lachman, Dedalus Press, University of Michigan, p. 145</ref>

In January 1963, Plath spoke with [[John Horder]], her general practitioner. She described the current depressive episode she was experiencing; it had been ongoing for six or seven months. While for most of the time she had been able to continue working, her depression had worsened and become severe, "marked by constant agitation, suicidal thoughts and inability to cope with daily life." Plath struggled with insomnia, taking medication at night to induce sleep, and frequently woke up early.<ref name="Cooper-2003"/> She had lost 20 pounds (9&nbsp;kg) in a short time.<ref name="Cooper-2003"/> However, she continued to take care of her physical appearance and did not outwardly speak of feeling guilty or unworthy.<ref name="Cooper-2003"/>
[[File:23 Fitzroy Road, London - Sylvia Plath - W.B. Yeats.jpg|thumb|23 Fitzroy Road, near Primrose Hill, London, where Plath died by [[suicide]]]]
Horder prescribed her an anti-depressant, a [[monoamine oxidase inhibitor]],<ref name="Cooper-2003"/> a few days before her suicide. Knowing she was at risk with two young children, he made strenuous efforts to have her admitted to a hospital; when that failed, he arranged for a live-in nurse.<ref name="Cooper-2003" />

Hughes claimed in a hand-written note to the literary critic Keith Sagar, discovered in 2001, that the anti-depressants prescribed were a "key factor" in Plath's suicide. He said Plath had previously had an adverse reaction to a prescription she had taken when they lived in the U.S. These pills were sold in England under a different name, and although Hughes did not name the pills explicitly, he claimed a new doctor had prescribed them to Plath without realizing she had taken them before with adverse effects.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Drugs a 'key factor' in Plath's suicide, claimed Hughes {{!}} Books {{!}} The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/aug/08/artsandhumanities.highereducation |access-date=2023-07-16 |website=theguardian.com|date=August 8, 2001 }}</ref> Several commentators have argued that because anti-depressants may take up to three weeks to take effect, her prescription from Horder would not have taken full effect prior to her death; however, others have pointed out that adverse effects of anti-depressants can begin immediately.{{sfn|Alexander|2003|p=325}}

The live-in nurse was due to arrive at nine on the morning of February 11, 1963, to help Plath with the care of her children. Upon arrival, she could not get into the flat but eventually gained access with the help of a workman. They found Plath dead with her head in the oven, having sealed the rooms between her and her sleeping children with tape, towels, and cloths.{{sfn|Stevenson|1990|p=296}} She was 30{{nbsp}}years old.<ref name="Feinmann-1993"/>

Plath's intentions have been debated. That morning, she asked her downstairs neighbor, art historian Trevor Thomas (1907–1993), what time he would be leaving. She also left a note reading "Call Dr. Horder", including the doctor's phone number. It is argued Plath turned on the gas at a time when Thomas would have been likely to see the note, but the escaping gas seeped downstairs and also rendered Thomas unconscious while he slept.{{sfn|Kirk|2004|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=NBlJYGHVESwC&pg=PA103 103–104]}} However, in her biography ''Giving Up: The Last Days of Sylvia Plath'', Plath's friend [[Jillian Becker]] wrote, "According to Mr. Goodchild, a police officer attached to the coroner's office... [Plath] had thrust her head far into the gas oven... [and] had really meant to die."{{sfn|Becker|2003|p={{page needed|date=March 2022}}}} Horder also believed her intention was clear. He stated that "No one who saw the care with which the kitchen was prepared could have interpreted her action as anything but an irrational compulsion."<ref name="Feinmann-1993"/> Plath had described the quality of her despair as "owl's talons clenching my heart".<ref>{{cite news |last=Guthmann |first=Edward |date=October 30, 2005 |title=The Allure: Beauty and an easy route to death have long made the Golden Gate Bridge a magnet for suicides |work=San Francisco Chronicle |url=http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Lethal-Beauty-The-Allure-Beauty-and-an-easy-3302966.php#page-6 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170525104344/http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Lethal-Beauty-The-Allure-Beauty-and-an-easy-3302966.php |archive-date=May 25, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Plath Grave15.jpg|thumb|Plath's grave at a church in [[Heptonstall]], [[West Yorkshire]]|alt=Flowers in front of a simple headstone bearing the inscription, "In memory Sylvia Plath Hughes 1932–1963 Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted."]]

===Aftermath===
An inquest was held on February 15 and concluded that the cause of death was [[suicide]] by [[carbon monoxide poisoning]].{{sfn|Butscher|2003|p=364}} Hughes was devastated; they had been separated for six months, due to his affair with Assia Wevill. In a letter to an old friend of Plath's from Smith College, he wrote: "That's the end of my life. The rest is posthumous."<ref name="Gifford-2008"/><ref>Smith College. ''Plath papers. Series 6'', Hughes. Plath archive.</ref> Wevill also committed suicide, using a gas stove, six years later.

Plath's gravestone in [[Heptonstall]]'s parish churchyard of St. Thomas the Apostle bears the inscription that Hughes chose for her:<ref name="Kirk p104">{{harvnb|Kirk|2004|p=104}}</ref> "Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted." Biographers have attributed the source of the quote either to the Hindu text ''[[Bhagavad Gita|The Bhagavad Gita]]''<ref name="Kirk p104"/> or to the 16th-century Buddhist novel ''[[Journey to the West]]'' written by [[Wu Cheng'en]].{{sfn|Carmody|Carmody|1996|p={{page needed|date=March 2022}}}}<ref>[[Cheng'en Wu]], translated and abridged by [[Arthur Waley]] (1942) ''[[Monkey (novel)|Monkey: Folk Novel of China]]''. [[UNESCO]] collection, Chinese series. Grove Press.</ref>

Eight years after the death of Plath, [[Al Alvarez]] (a friend of Plath and Hughes between 1960 and 1963)<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |date=1971-11-23 |title=Literary Dispute Arises Over Sylvia Plath's Death (Published 1971) |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/11/23/archives/literary-dispute-arises-over-sylvia-plaths-death.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221203234905/https://www.nytimes.com/1971/11/23/archives/literary-dispute-arises-over-sylvia-plaths-death.html |archive-date=December 3, 2022 |access-date=2025-01-03 |language=en |url-status=live }}</ref> wrote that Plath's suicide was an unanswered cry for help.<ref name="Feinmann-1993"/> This prompted an angry response from Hughes who demanded that this claim be withdrawn from wider publication.<ref name=":1" /> In a BBC interview in March 2000, Alvarez spoke about his failure to recognize Plath's depression, saying he regretted his inability to offer her emotional support.<ref name="Thorpe-2000"/>

Plath's daughter [[Frieda Hughes]] is a writer and artist. On March 16, 2009, Plath's son [[Nicholas Hughes]] died by suicide at his home in Fairbanks, Alaska, following a history of depression.<ref>{{cite news |last=Bates |first=Stephen |date=March 23, 2009 |title=Son of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes kills himself |location=London |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/mar/23/sylvia-plath-son-kills-himself |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170312080113/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/mar/23/sylvia-plath-son-kills-himself |archive-date=March 12, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=March 23, 2009 |title=Poet Plath's son takes own life |location=London |work=BBC |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7958876.stm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090326040506/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7958876.stm |archive-date=March 26, 2009 |url-status=live}}</ref>