Many who admire Sylvia Plath look with considerable astonishment at the normalcy of her childhood and life. To most Plath always seemed to be a motivated, brilliant and energetic individual who seemed to have had everything going for her as a middle class girl living in the 1950's. But when compared her life to her poetry and her history of depression, it hardly seems as if she came from such a "typical" background. The elements that indicate Sylvia Plath led a melancholy life is the death of her father, the periods of depression she underwent, and her attempt at suicide that resulted in her death.
             First, one element that indicates Sylvia Plath led a melancholy life is her father's death. Plath was born on October 27th, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts into the home of Otto and Aurelia Plath. Her home was in Winthrop, a seaside town near Boston that helped Plath to develop her poetic and artistic voice as a child through her fascination with the sea. The death of Plath's father, Otto Plath had a enormous impact on many of Plath's childhood memories. Plath had a strong relationship with her father, and "apparently, idolized him" (Unger 529) which made it very difficult for her when he died of complications from a neglected case of diabetes. This was perhaps Plath's first step towards her downward spiraling attitude toward her "normal" life that soon led to depression. Plath's first experience with depression came when she was twenty-one in the summer of 1953 after she returned from a guest editorship with the magazine Mademoiselle in New York. Her experiences in New York left her feeling "very ecstatic, horribly depressed, shocked, elated, enlightened, and enervated..." (Oconnor 1607) even though it was supposed to be an exciting experience. Along with her bad experience in New York, Plath found upon returning home that she had not been accepted into a Harvard sum...