Ariel Essays

Ariel

Life and death, beginnings and endings. The death of one person: the ending of two lives, or the beginning of both? Sylvia Plath, tumbling through madness toward suicide, created a collection of poems titled Ariel, and used the theme poem to...

Ariel

Sylvia Plath composed her most famous - and infamous - poem "Daddy" at a time in her life when she must certainly have been contemplating suicide, or at the very least was in the grip of a devastating depression. At this point Plath, having been...

12th Grade

Ariel

Seamus Heaney and Sylvia Plath are two contemporary poets from very different family backgrounds. Heaney grew up rooted in rural Ireland with a close-knit large family, and Plath grew up in a dislocated family with her mother and brother. Her...

12th Grade

Ariel

Arguably one of Plath’s more joyous poems, You’re can be considered a celebration of a child growing inside a mother’s womb. Particularly noteworthy is its affirming outlook on life, albeit that of Plath’s new child rather than her own existence....