Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet

Born to middle class parents in Boston, Massachusetts

Otto Plath died on November 5, 1940, when Plath was 8 years old,  of complications following the amputation of a foot due to untreated diabetes

published her first poem at the age of eight

studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge

In 1953, at the age of 21, made her first attempt at suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills

After a period of recovery, which involved electroshock and psychotherapy 

In 1956 she married Ted Hughes, an English poet

two children: Frieda and Nicholas

In July 1962 Plath discovered Hughes had been having an affair and the marriage disintegrated.

On February 11, 1963, suffering from depression from the age of 20,  and a marital separation, Plath committed suicide with cooking gas at the age

of thirty one

Books: The Colossus and Other Poems and Ariel

In 1982, she won a Pulitzer Prize posthumously

credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry (self-revealing poetry)

THEMES

conflict in Plath’s poetry.

Plath struggles against her inner and external worlds.

She fears emotional exhaustion:

She railed at the smug conformity of contemporary culture:

She is troubled by human frailty and vulnerability:

 She protests against the futility of history and war:

She battles against a negative self-image:

She is embarrassed by her unwitting intrusion into a natural scene:

She is shocked by her powerful, violent and uncontrolled subconscious:

She battles against inner demons:

She fights and surrenders to mental exhaustion:

She is numbed by her failed relationship:

She battles against her deep fears:

She tries to fight off her neurosis so she can be a mother:

Poppies in October

this poem is about enchanting and breath taking beauty of “Poppies”.

Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage (pass without paying attention) such skirts (=petals).

Nothing in the sun and the sky can match the poppy petals in their color and beauty. These are so beautiful that

even the bright red and shiny Sun cannot pass around them (manage such skirts) and had to stop to watch the

beauty of these showy flowers.

Nor the woman(reference to herself) in the ambulance. 

Whose red heart blooms (amazingly keep alive) through her coat so astoundingly.

the woman who is in the ambulance, whose blood is gushing from her heart and coloring her coat (evidently

suffering and is in pain), cannot gather much attention.

the woman who is in the ambulance (evidently suffering and is in pain) cannot evade their charm. Here heart

has gone after them and she is spell bound.

A gift, a love gift 

Utterly unasked for 

By a sky 

A gift of beauty a natural talent bestowed over these little flowers was unasked for. It is heavenly as beauty

always is.

Palely and flamily 

Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes 

Dulled to a halt under bowlers. 

O my God, what am I 

That these late mouths should cry open 

In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers

ANALYSIS

Sylvia Plath's winter poppies are females.

There are three gender references in the poem Poppies in October. Firstly, her poppy petals are like skirts. She first compares the

skirts to sun-clouds, flitting and fluttering in the wind like a skirt, and then she compares them to an actual woman's skirt. Poppy is

also a much less known Greek goddess.

The woman in the ambulance, maybe Plath herself, or any woman, is of course in pain. But for Sylvia, the woman's ability to feel pain

raises her to a higher level among all things alive: The tortured heart is not bleeding, it'sblooming, and that too, astoundingly.

The blooming passion is her love gift to a man, who didn't ask for it, or doesn't care. Just like the poppies' flames are passions utterly

unasked for by a sky.

And like the sky, which ignites the carbon monoxides but doesn't care for the fires that erupt thereafter, the eyes... under bowlers, are

the eyes of uncaring men. The eyes have been dulled by the protection of their hats. They don't see the passions burning before them.

This is the second gender reference.

The last stanza further strengthens the gender-roles. The men are cold, likefrost, dispassionate, like the blue cornflowers.

[Cornflowers are also calledbachelor's buttons, again, male.] And the the love-hungry poppies/women are crying with open mouths for

a drop of affection in this cold world of cold men.

And it's humiliating, it's killing. It makes her gasp: Oh my God! Why am I here? Why are the poppies not dead in bitter cold October?