Terror, Depression and Trauma: The art of a confessional Sylvia Plath

Name of Author : Ambika Gahlot

Abstract: The ambition of this paper is to bring to the foreground the unacknowledged themes in the works of Sylvia Plath. Plath was a modernist poet, who was subjective yet objective, lamenting of all the wounded souls shrouded in darkness. Victimization, terror, grief and trauma accelerated her psychotic neurosis that speak volumes of her repressed soul. Her words paint pictures of the marred age in which she was living, camouflaged with the traumas of the time. The portrayal of society, carefully crafted in the works of this modernist poet gives vent to her state of mind and of the complexities of her relationships. Tormented, agonized, bereaved of her identity, Plath reincarnates in the patriarchal world to speak of the battles she lost and of her unheard cries. Sailing from chaos and frequent mental breakdowns, she builds for herself a legacy that radiates her persona- wounded, contained and yet, pensive. Plath was a poet not necessarily restricted to her suicide but beginning to carve meaning after that. Her doomed soul rebounds the atrocities she faced and validates the very essence of her being. This paper reverberates the core factors that contributed in her thought process and thus, are symbolically linked to her being chained to her psyche. Trauma shapes human beings and speaks vividly in her world of poetry.

Keywords : Terror, Trauma, Depression, Victimization, Confessional style.

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