9. Sylvia Plath committed suicide a month after her masterpiece, The Bell Jar, was published
Sylvia Plath (1932-63) is a key figure in twentieth-century literature and feminism. Excelling academically as a girl, she won a scholarship to Smith College and was a Fulbright Scholar at Newnham College, Cambridge. A prolific writer, she sold her first poem to a magazine whilst still in high school, and married the famous Welsh poet, Ted Hughes, whom she met at Cambridge. Throughout her short life, however, Plath suffered from depression, and was institutionalized after attempting suicide in 1953 whilst a student at Smith College. There she underwent controversial electroconvulsive therapy, which can lead to all manner of long-term damage.
Plath’s marriage to Hughes remains a controversial topic. Some see Hughes as directly responsible for her suicide, as their marriage broke up due to his infidelity. Regardless, the facts are that a severely-depressed Plath was left to care for two young children. She simply did not get the help she so desperately needed, and committed suicide shortly after The Bell Jar, a thinly-veiled account of her depression and breakdown, was published. On 11th February 1963, she was found dead with her head in the oven, having carefully sealed the room to protect her sleeping children from the lethal fumes.
