What if every facet of your life was negated by millions of renowned critics and scholars who perpetuate that the most important aspect of your identity was its nonexistence? Sylvia Plath “tragically ended her own life on a bleak February morning in London in 1963,” (Sanazaro 62) is the common line repeated and rephrased in virtually every article ever written concerning “one of the most dynamic and admired poets of the 20th century” (Poetry Foundation par. 1). So why is it that an incredibly well-known, praised, and arguably controversial poet’s entire life story is reduced to its ending? Throughout Plath’s life, her obsession with death and her desire to achieve this ultimate goal was infused into her writing, yet she felt compelled to stay alive in order to fulfill her role as a mother, daughter, wife, and poet. Plath’s yearning for death stemmed from her desire to feel in order to escape the torment and numbness that she endured. At the end of her life, Plath achieved a state of perfection and transcendence that she had been searching for all along. Her portrayal of suicide in an eerily positive, anticipatory way has altered readers’ perceptions and shifted the commentary surrounding death in literary settings. Plath’s project, however, was to subvert the expectations of society by discussing polarizing issues, not for the purpose of appeasing an audience, but to impact their lives and the lives of future generations. Her depiction of intense, raw emotion and the unorthodox topics she addresses challenge societal norms and question the foundation upon which accepted human beliefs stand.

“Tulips” by Sylvia Plath juxtaposes the desire to achieve peace in death by offering reminders of the responsibilities of life. At the beginning of the poem, Plath employs the imagery of a winter’s day to describe the peace for which the speaker yearns. Gradually, her ominous thoughts are revealed when she bluntly divulges, “I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions” (5). This contrast between a serene setting and the depressing perspective of the speaker creates an intimate tone by exposing the personal narrative of a troubled individual. 

The poet employs figurative language to depict the experience of the speaker, who is being treated in the hospital. In particular, anaphora and metaphor are used to demonstrate the monotony to which the speaker has grown accustomed: “[t]he nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,/They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps” (11-12). The repetition of the word “pass” communicates how the speaker loses faith in her life as the days grow indistinguishable. The comparison of the nurses to “gulls,” illustrates their insignificance to the speaker while she grapples with her desire to die. She feels herself growing obsolete and relates herself to a trivial object, a pebble, with her identity becoming dulled and lost: “[m]y body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water/[t]ends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently” (15-16). The speaker feels insignificant and objectified in her own life, which she no longer controls. She is becoming numb to her feelings and thoughts while she loses sight of her identity. Through the futile attempts of the nurses to resolve her mental anguish by “smoothing [her mental struggles] gently,” the speaker becomes merely a shadow of the individual she once was. She states, “I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat/stubbornly hanging on to my name and address” (22-23). The speaker considers herself useless, as her sole purpose is to carry the burdens of her mind and the world. As she grows accustomed to her destitute circumstances, she begins to question whether life is worth living. She describes being “swabbed…clear of my loving associations” (24) and feeling unfulfilled in the life she leads. However, the speaker seems to be content with her emptiness, as she finally receives the peace she has yearned for since the beginning. 

Though she is “swabbed” of the love she experienced, she accepts that her death will promote peace and will liberate her from her struggles. This odd sense of impending closure that the speaker anticipates demonstrates her positive perception of death, perpetuating a calm, comforting tone. The term “swabbed” in this line also has a medicinal, emotionless connotation, representing the speaker detaching herself from life to achieve peace. In the final line of this stanza, the speaker states, “I am a nun now, I have never been so pure,” (28), demonstrating the change of heart she has experienced, and her gradual acceptance of the end of her life. The allusion to religion in the words “nun” and “pure,” signifies the speaker’s urge to cleanse herself of sin to welcome peace. She is becoming “pure,” as she is relieving herself of the burdens she carries, and is ascending to a state of tranquility that she had once thought unimaginable. 

The speaker’s uplifting attitude toward death is apparent when she claims, “[h]ow free it is, you have no idea how free/[t]he peacefulness is so big it dazes you” (31-32). The speaker comes to terms with her own demise, as she will finally be liberated from her mind and her painful existence. She realizes that, in the final moments of life, she will no longer feel the weight of her own expectations, but instead will be able to bask in the peace of emptiness. She understands that, for the living, peace is temporary and fleeting, yet the dying are able to shut “their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet” (35). In other words, the ultimate tranquility of death is a passage from suffering to transcendence. Again, the religious allusion to the “Communion tablet” demonstrates the speaker consuming the Body of Christ. She then carries the Lord within her, while she rids herself of impurities and prepares herself for death. This image also implies that the speaker will be “resurrected,” as she will transcend human struggles to achieve a higher peace.

Although the speaker anticipates this enveloping peace, the responsibilities of her life prevent her from achieving this state. While in the hospital, she is given tulips and claims she “could hear them breathe'' (37). Through the use of personification, the poet demonstrates the pain that accompanies living. It is previously mentioned that the speaker has a family and responsibilities that await her, which she is unable to avoid. Although she yearns to end the struggle of living, she is unable to do so as the tulips “weigh me [the speaker] down/ [u]psetting me with their sudden tongues and their color/[a] dozen red lead sinkers round my neck” (40-42). Comparing the flowers, which represent the beauty of life, to a burden that weighs on the speaker is a way to depict her conflicting emotions. Although tulips typically have a positive connotation, they cause her to feel the weight of the expectation that she must recover and continue living. 

While she contemplates her inner feelings, the speaker concludes that, though she craves the peace that accompanies death, she must defer this desire to face responsibility. Though the speaker views herself as useless and unproductive, “I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself,” (48) she is reminded that desiring death is a method of coping with her current situation. Since she is confined to a hospital bed and has no distraction from the sorrow of her mind, she is unable to grasp that joy exists and can be found. Although the more desirable path to the speaker is death, she remembers the life she cannot escape: “[a]nd I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes/[i]ts bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me” (60-61). Though the circumstances of the speaker seem grim and inescapable, the ending of the poem conveys a hopeful tone. The speaker understands that struggle is as inevitable as joy, and one cannot exist without the other. Therefore, the poet aims to communicate the hope that, in time, circumstances will improve and peace can be found, even just momentarily, before the end ensues. 

Throughout the poem, Plath portrays the speaker’s feelings of insignificance and indifference, which relates on a larger scale to the objectification of women in an oppressive society. In “Tulips,” the speaker feels numb toward all aspects of her life and is no longer in control of her existence, much like how women are deprived of a voice in a male-dominated society. She is smoothed over, like a pebble, by those who suppress her voice, believing it is better for her to be seen rather than heard (15-16). The woman “observes herself as being freely manipulated by others,” (Tang et al. 236), and witnesses her own objectification, though she can no longer control her identity or life. Similarly, women are often forced to conform to others’ expectations of them in order to be deemed worthy by society. To escape this cycle of oppression, the speaker craves death to liberate herself from societal obligation. Through doing so, “she is arguably killing her confined self-trapped by the roles of a wife or a mother, killing the ‘false woman,’ to develop a new, independent female identity” (Tang et al. 236). Plath demonstrates that the woman’s death will bring her the peace she craves. She will be freeing herself from her false persona and will be able to achieve her true purpose and find inner peace through death. 

The religious influence in “Tulips” contributes to the idea that the speaker is prepared and anticipating her death in order to welcome peace in the afterlife. The speaker “does not simply want to die-that would be easy enough. She now feels that she is ready, worthy, by a process of preparation- ‘I am a nun now, I have never been so pure’ (28)” (Scheerer 476). The speaker has cleansed herself of the false identity she perpetuated throughout her life and is prepared to discover her true self through death. The purification of the woman demonstrates the process through which she has relieved herself of her burdens and removed herself from the life she once led. She makes room for death by detaching herself from reality, only to realize that she is unable to escape it completely. The red tulips that are brought to her during her stay at the hospital force “vivid life upon the peaceful death-whiteness of purified readiness” (Scheerer 476). The tulips remind her of the responsibilities of her life and her inability to abandon the identity and role she has crafted for herself. The poem “does not only set up a confrontation between life and death but between the faceless and the face-endowed as well” (Scheerer 476). Though the speaker wishes to become “effaced” (48), and escape the life she leads, the tulips prevent her from doing so. The presence and symbolism of the flowers “not only force existence on the speaker but pain and self-awareness as well” (Scheerer 476). They remind her of the life she cannot leave behind and encourage her to cope with her emotions instead of searching for desperate, or deadly, solutions.

Plath explores one such solution in “Lady Lazarus,” which comments on death as an art form and the cycle of rebirth as the key to unlocking the speaker’s true self. As the poem begins, the speaker conveys her ability to die and be resurrected every decade. While the opening lines are shocking, the speaker maintains an eerily objective tone as the poem continues. She regards the act of dying and being revived as a talent, and considers herself a “walking miracle” (4), a treasure that should be admired. The poet employs metaphors, comparing the speaker to a “paperweight” and a “linen” (7, 9), as her features are obscured and she appears unphased by the passage of time. However, as one “peel[s] off the napkin” (10) to reveal her true identity, she is a decaying skeleton, whose prospect of coming back to life seems incomprehensible. Yet, soon, her pre-existing flesh will be “at home” (18) on her body, and she will once again return to the “smiling woman” (19) she once was. Although the poet’s description of the speaker dying and being resurrected seems inconceivable, Plath’s goal is to convey the unique position of the speaker. She is objectified by her audience, yet she plays into the narrative that she is their source of entertainment. Through dying unpredictably, “annihilat[ing] each decade” (25), and returning as the same individual soon after, the speaker perpetuates a whimsical attitude. The poet’s unorthodox tone surrounding life and death causes discomfort and a disconnect from the speaker, who is meant to spark controversy. By detaching the audience from this individual, Plath perpetuates the narrative that the speaker is caught between life and death and is not fully accessible. This further creates room for uncertainty, contributing to the unpredictable nature of the speaker’s actions. 

As the poem continues, it is revealed that the speaker has attempted suicide twice before. She discusses her experiences with death in a measured tone, implying that she does not value her own life. The act of dying does not intimidate her, rather it escapes her while it seizes many others. When the speaker states, “[d]ying/is an art, like everything else./I do it exceptionally well,” (43-45) she refers to how, though she strives for death, she ultimately avoids it through her talent of vanishing and returning. While many wish for a peaceful end, she wants death to feel “like hell” and “real” (46-47), demonstrating how she has been numbed by life and craves feeling, which she seeks in death. 

In this same vein, the speaker has grown accustomed to being objectified by those who claim her as their greatest accomplishment. Toward the end of the poem, she states, “I am your opus,/I am your valuable” (67-68), which is directed toward the doctor and the enemy, who have revived her. On one hand, the doctor considers her a trophy used to measure his success, while her enemy seeks revenge by preventing her from dying. The poet repeats the phrase “I am your” to depict the objectification of the speaker, whose purpose is to entertain and please others. She acknowledges that she is their “great concern” (72), and that her death would wreak havoc, as she would no longer amaze her audience through her talent of survival. This concept is echoed in the final lines of the poem, as the term “[b]eware” (80-81) is repeated, warning “[h]err God/[h]err Lucifer” (79) of her inevitable success. The speaker realizes that her true purpose cannot be achieved in this life. Rather, she must attempt death again to unlock her full potential and understand her true identity, apart from the implications of others. She foreshadows her own demise and warns the powers of the afterlife of her arrival. This communicates that the constant cycle of death and rebirth will eventually come to an end, and she will finally become and understand her true self. 

In her work, Plath detaches the speaker from her audience to liberate her from the confines of their expectations and her own personal suffering. As a result, the speaker feels further disconnected from her life as she approaches death and bridges the gap between existence and nonexistence. She becomes “divorced from the human” and less accessible to her audience, thus having a “deep psychic impact on modern readers” (Sanazaro 69). The “personal-depersonalization” (Sanazaro 69) of the poem detaches the speaker from her reality as she becomes merely a placeholder in her life, a trophy for some and entertainment for most. The inescapable cycle of rebirth numbs her, and the death she cannot achieve haunts her. This leads her to perform “the suicide act in a manner that 'feels like hell,’” which “is a deliberate choice of pain, and at the same time, it is something that can remove the hurt of daily activity” (Fatah 273). The speaker makes a conscious effort to experience the pain of dying, as she has become numb to the mental anguish of living and no longer feels. Therefore the goal of her suicide attempts is not to remove feeling, but rather to finally experience the emotions that she has been deprived of in her troubled life. 

The speaker is representative of the struggles that Plath endured in her own life, as she “would launch herself at the heart of death in order to be recalled to life in a different form of existence” (Fatah 273). Throughout her life, Plath strived for death through her various suicide attempts and sought solace in her poetry, which expressed the emotion she could not feel. Similarly, the speaker in “Lady Lazarus” is objectified by others who profit off of her failure, despite her tragic motives in her endless attempts to die.

Further, the speaker’s experience of dying and being revived in “Lady Lazarus” relates to “the Jewish Lazarus of the New Testament who must await Christ to summon him back to life from his deathly paradise” (Sanazaro 67). In the poem, the speaker “does not simply die but reduces herself to ashes and revives herself in flames by the strength of her own will” (Sanazaro 67). The speaker wants to bask in the glory and pain of her death, as she has been deprived of feeling her entire life. Additionally, in the New Testament, Lazarus’ actions are controlled by the instructions of God, and he is unable to come back to life without His order. This juxtaposes the narrative of Lady Lazarus, who has become a master at dying, and has perfected the craft of being resurrected based on her own strength. In this sense, the speaker is in control of death, implying that she has cheated God and He has lost his position of power and influence over her life. Thus “the center of power becomes the individual's ability to create the self,” (Sanazaro 67) and the dynamic shifts to depict the speaker as an all-mighty, untouchable force that not even God can influence.

Throughout the poem, imagery of the Holocaust and symbolism that relates the speaker’s struggles to the tortured lives of Jewish individuals during this time period are present. The speaker mentions being saved by “Herr Doktor '' (65), which relates to the doctors of the Holocaust who “instead of treating patients all that they did was torturing” (Fatah 273). In the same sense, the doctors who revive the speaker and claim her as their accomplishment, or a “pretty piece of trinket made for staring and preserving” (Fatah 273), prevent her from achieving death. She feels tortured in this cycle of being brought back to life, as she believes that her purpose can only be achieved through death.

 Plath implies that the torture endured by Jewish individuals during the Holocaust is similar to the pain the speaker experiences, as she cannot escape the torment of life and death. Nazis during the Holocaust “smashed the complete freedom of self-expression as well as the identity as an individual '' (Daiya 167). Jewish individuals were tortured and deprived of the ability to practice their religion and express themselves freely. Plath, in turn, “has drawn a parallel between the public horrors of these camps and personal horrors of oppression” (Daiya 167). The speaker, according to Plath, is not dissimilar to Jewish people who endured the torture of anti-semitism, as others view her as an object who serves no purpose in life other than to satisfy and entertain them. The Holocaust therefore represents “the death-and-life battle between the self and a deadly enemy” (Daiya 167). Though the speaker in “Lady Lazarus” did not endure the same torture and oppression that was implemented by the Nazi Party, she grapples with trying to pursue her purpose while facing the barriers that inevitably ensue. 

Though many perceive “Lady Lazarus'' as a powerful example of confessional poetry and a true representation of Plath’s inner feelings, others believe that this poem exemplifies the belief that “poetry relies upon trope and not upon sincerity” (Bloom par. 3). According to Harold Bloom, an American literary critic, poets often write to satisfy what their audience craves at a particular moment in time. “Lady Lazarus,” in particular, was written a mere few months prior to Plath’s death. By the time it was published, Plath’s voice had been established and her following came to expect her to write disturbingly honest confessions. Though Plath’s poetry can be viewed as a reflection of the emotional turmoil she experienced throughout her life, some individuals, such as Helen Vendler, view her craft and style as a “‘centrifugal spin to further and further reaches of outrage’” (Vendler qtd in Bloom par. 4). To some, Plath’s poetry entices her readers through its exaggerated portrayals of emotional outrage that weaken the strength of her pen. For instance, in “Lady Lazarus,” Bloom is of the opinion that, “gratuitous and humanly offensive appropriation of the imagery of Jewish martyrs in Nazi death camps (an appropriation incessant in Plath) seems to me a pure instance of coercive rhetoric, transforming absolutely nothing” (Bloom par. 5). Plath’s connection between the personal struggles of the speaker, representing herself, to the torture endured by Jewish individuals inflicted by Nazis angers critics who perceive this attempt as inappropriate and distasteful. Bloom believes that “Lady Lazarus'' is just one example of Plath’s egotistical rants that do not “persuade” or “transform” the minds of readers, but rather overwhelm them with her self-pity and narcissism. Plath’s poetry remains controversial among readers today, some who believe her work is a powerful, relatable embodiment of an emotionally tortured soul, while others feel that her true talent lies in the hands of her admirers and is not evident through her writing. 

Plath consistently subverts readers’ expectations by shifting the narrative around taboo topics in a way that disrupts the individual’s perspective. In “Edge,” Plath discusses the cycle of death and rebirth in a manner that is discomforting, yet impactful. Through shocking imagery, Plath communicates the impossibility of perfection and the ultimate honor of death. The title alone demonstrates how the subject is on the brink of choosing death over life and teeters on the “edge” of relieving herself of all burdens to achieve bliss. This idea that perfection and peace can be found in death is evident through the first line of the poem, “[t]he woman is perfected” (1). Through using past tense, Plath describes the death of a woman who is only now considered “perfect” after having achieved her ultimate goal. This line being end-stopped and the lack of emotion conveyed by the speaker creates an objective tone. It implies that the speaker believes that perfection can be obtained through dying, which she views as desirable. The following lines contribute to this idea, as the subject’s “body wears the smile of accomplishment,” (3) meaning that the perfection she has finally attained adorns her, and symbolizes to others that it is achievable. The term “accomplishment” reinforces that the speaker views the woman’s death as an honorable act, more impressive than living itself. Yet, by removing the woman from the scenario and commenting on the “smile” she “wears,” Plath demonstrates how, even in death, women are objects who will never be perceived as “perfect.” Although society will continue to hold them to this standard, “perfection” can only be achieved when it is possessed by the individual, rather than coveted by others. The woman was constantly striving to be perfect, yet was only able to achieve this status when she was released from others’ expectations. Thus, the poet speaks to how conformity is not the path to perfection, rather death is the ultimate solution. 

The speaker describes the woman’s death as a “Greek necessity,” (4) alluding to how suicide was previously viewed as honorable and necessary, which aligns with the speaker’s interpretation of death. Yet, in modern day, taking one’s life is viewed as selfish, especially for women whose role it is to care for their families. This juxtaposition between ancient and modern society establishes an unorthodox mood. Plath rebels against the traditional, grim connotation of death and subverts the perception that suicide is self-serving. Instead, she touches on the honor and “accomplishment” (3) of taking one’s life in order to resist conformity. 

Throughout the poem, shocking imagery depicts the oppressive lives of women who are burdened with the task of serving others. Plath emphasizes that, traditionally, a woman’s purpose is to care for and please others. Yet, true fulfillment cannot be found through this monotonous cycle. The subject of the poem proves this idea by killing herself in an attempt to find peace and satisfaction. The speaker conveys the image of “[e]ach dead child coiled,” (9) around the woman to communicate that she killed her children prior to killing herself. In society, the value of a woman’s life depends solely on her ability to be a mother. Yet, when this way is lost on an individual, the feeling of emptiness envelops them and their children, whom they are unable to support. Plath proves that forgetting the joy of motherhood leads to a lack of fulfillment in life. The subject devoted her life to her children, yet now feels that their presence is “a white serpent,” (9) strangling her with their burden. The woman feels “empty” (11), as she failed as a mother, and no longer sees a purpose in living. Additionally, the biblical image of the “white serpent” references purity and innocence, which Eve’s original sin of consuming forbidden fruit corrupts. This belief that every human is born sinful and must strive for “perfection” to be valued sets unrealistic expectations that burden individuals, similar to a serpent strangling its prey. 

Furthermore, the speaker employs the metaphor of a rose to communicate the subject’s urge to shield her children from the painful monotony of life. Similar to a flower protecting its petals from harsh conditions, the woman holds her children close to protect them from the inevitable struggles of life: “[s]he has folded//[t]hem back into her body as petals/[o]f a rose” (12-14). The woman’s “petals” represent her children, as they are her entire worth and compose her as an individual. When she is unable to protect them from the cruelties of life, she feels as though she has failed and her life has lost all meaning. Her solution, in turn, is to take her own life and the lives of her children to prevent them from struggle, which is apparent through the lines, “[s]tiffens and odors bleed/[f]rom the sweet, deep throats of the night flower” (15-16). The author’s intention is to subvert expectations through utilizing the metaphorical rose to represent death, rather than its traditional connotation of beauty and life. The woman’s decision to kill her children therefore stemmed from her desire to liberate them from a painful existence and enable them to achieve the ultimate perfection of nonconformity.

Throughout the poem, it is evident that the phases of a woman’s life are predetermined by societal expectations, as her purpose is to birth and raise her children. Similarly, “[t]he moon,” (17) that the speaker references, endures phase changes by becoming more apparent before fading and repeating the process. When women are born, they are expected to care for their families until their death when this life format will be passed onto future generations. This cycle has continued for generations and is considered the “perfect” life trajectory for a woman to follow. Yet, following this preordained path toward perfection does not necessarily lead to fulfilling one’s purpose, which is the argument of the poet. In the poem, the subject became “perfected” (1) only in death when she no longer had to conform to others’ expectations of her. From the perspective of the moon, who is “used to this sort of thing” (19), the struggle to find one’s purpose through the traditional cycle of life is a testament to the inevitability of suicide or death. The poet utilizes the symbol of a moon to represent the expectation to spend one’s life searching for the unattainable, only to discover the perfection of nonconformity through death. 

Plath’s “Edge” is a portrayal of the exhaustive efforts of individuals to strive for the impossible, only to find the solace of ‘perfection’ in death. Compared to Plath’s other works in her collection, Ariel, “Edge” seems to lack “poetic sophistications'' (Fatah 274), which could “indicate the poet’s finality, as it seems that she has reached the point of not being able to further express herself” (Fatah 274). The metaphor of the monotonous cycle of a woman’s life is further demonstrated by the speaker’s tone and the combination of enjambed and end-stopped lines. The speaker has reached a point where she feels numb to the process of striving for perfection, and instead resorts to killing herself to escape this painful, fruitless cycle. The “very title” and “chronology” of “Edge” illustrate the “in-between condition of Plath, life and death,” and the “very thin line between the two” (Fatah 274). Throughout her life, the speaker sought perfection, believing she could attain this state through following the predetermined path of becoming a mother and caring for her children. However, before her death, she realized this perfection could never be achieved as long as individuals continued to be controlled by rigid societal standards. In turn, the “Edge” Plath references is “not only the “Edge” of her poetry, but her life as well” (Fatah 274). From Plath’s perspective, liberating herself from this draining cycle could only be achieved through committing suicide. Death was the only resolution to the pain and suffering she had endured through her life, and was the only path to lead her to perfection. 

The poem also offers religious and philosophical metaphors that depict the speaker’s desire to die and escape the suffering she endured. According to the speaker, her children were a “white serpent” that prevented her from becoming “perfected,” as they were a constant reminder of her false purpose, or her maternal duties. They “represent the pure omission beings, who kept her busy from death,” (Fatah 274). Yet, in killing herself and her children, she prevents them from facing the same torment she did and allows them to experience the perfection of death without struggling through life. Additionally, the poem references the “Greek myth in which Medea killed her two children as a revenge on her husband's infidelity” (Fatah 269). Through killing herself and her children, Plath implies that the speaker wants her significant other to be overcome with grief and endure the same pain and torment she suffered through. This metaphor symbolizes the infidelity present in Plath’s relationship with her ex-husband, Ted Hughes. Plath uses the symbolism of this metaphor to represent “death as a savior, but also as an avenger,” (Fatah 274) that not only allowed her to achieve ‘perfection,’ but also inflicted pain on those who wronged her.

The perception of “Edge” as an autobiographical reflection on Plath’s life and her intentions through dying disregards the fact that it is written in the third-person point of view, “as if she has stepped out of herself and made her final statements on her life” (Fatah 274). The poem intends to demonstrate how the woman was finally able to receive closure and be at peace with her life through dying. Plath subverts expectations by conveying how perfection cannot be achieved through conforming to society’s expectations, but through dying and releasing oneself from obligation. Dying, in the poet’s opinion, “is not merely for self-destructing means, but it also is a vain liberation avenue for a desperate person, which could not be found anywhere but within the arms of death” (Fatah 275). The poem portrays the speaker’s yearning for perfection, though she is only able to achieve this goal in an unorthodox way. By depicting death in a way that is not necessarily grim or depressing, Plath demonstrates her desperation to achieve ‘perfection,’ or to die. The poet achieved her goal by fulfilling a purpose that was impossible to accomplish in her torturous life. 

The speaker’s death also communicates how Plath “lost her title as a daughter, as a lover, as a respectful woman in society, and the one whose “pitcher of milk, now empty” can no longer see the use of being a mother as well,” (Fatah 275), demonstrating how she no longer sees a purpose in life. When writing “Edge,” it is clear that Plath had reached a point of despair that prevented her from recognizing her value as an individual. She was stripped of her titles and could no longer see the point in living without a role to fill. Plath argues that the poem’s “ultimate affirmation is a negation: the search for an identity means the search for non-identity. The discovery of purpose discloses that there is no purpose” (Scheerer 470). The speaker had spent her entire life searching for the unattainable to satisfy her purpose. Yet, it was only through dying that she realized the purpose and identity she had been searching for did not exist and could not be found through living. Instead, ‘perfection’ can only be found through escaping the torment of life and rebelling against the expectations of society. 

 Furthermore, in “Edge,” Plath writes to convey that “the only real "journey" is a moveless, static in-folding; the only garden is the last, not the lost one” (Scheerer 480). In the poem, the speaker arrives at the conclusion that she is unable to obtain ‘perfection’ and will only be able to do so when she accepts her death. She searched for a state of perfection that was not lost on her, but rather did not exist “in a world which can offer no place ‘to get to’” (Scheerer 480). In “Edge,” Plath communicates the insignificance of a life that offers no reward and instead argues that death is the only desirable path to fulfilling one’s true purpose.  

Plath’s robust history and legacy as an accomplished poet and deeply troubled individual has led generations to ponder the implications and significance of her suicide. Nearly every criticism surrounding Plath broadcasts her death prominently, neglecting the fact that she pioneered a new genre of honest, confessional poetry. Admittedly, Plath’s curiosity and obsession surrounding death plays a key role in the majority of her poems. Yet, the fact of her suicide remains largely inconsequential compared to the more significant conversations she has in her poems regarding death. Distilling Plath’s life in this way is a gross understatement and ignores the intention she had when writing her most painfully significant works. “Tulips” aims to convey the harsh reality of living which interrupts her desire to discover peace in death. “Lady Lazarus” depicts the cruelty of living, which will eventually cease to make way for the speaker to embrace her full potential. “Edge,” one of the final poems Plath wrote, conveys the perfection of liberating oneself from the confines of life. Though death plays a crucial role in her poetry, Plath writes with anticipation. She craves death and cannot wait for its arrival, as it signifies the end of the torturous cycle she endured. Plath’s goal is not to disturb readers through mentioning death, yet rather to disrupt the comfort of their ignorance. She spent her life fixating on the unknown, trying to articulate what she could not understand. It distracted her from a painful existence that prevented her from obtaining perfection and knowledge. Plath’s writing became a way to cope with the fact that she was an imposter, publishing works that portrayed death as her “companion” (Fatah 267), though they had never met. 

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. “Bloom on Sylvia Plath.” Bloom’s Literature, Chelsea House, 2017, online.infobase.com/HRC/Search/Details/12?articleId=46958. Accessed 1 Mar. 2023.

Daiya, Krishna. “Lady Lazarus: The Odyssey of a Woman from Existential Angst to Unrivalled Triumph.” Www.academia.edu, www.academia.edu/5816640/Lady_Lazarus_The_Odyssey_of_a_Woman_from_Existential_Angst_to_Unrivalled_Triumph. Accessed 1 Mar. 2023.

Fatah, Shokhan. “The Portrayal of Death in Sylvia Plath’s Selected Poems.” Journal of Garmian University, vol. 7, no. 1, 2020, doi.org/10.24271/garmian.207116. Accessed 29 Jan. 2021.

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