WOMEN IN SOCIETY: WOMEN’S LIFE STORIES

INTRODUCTION: The present research aims to analyze the social representations of gender and the psychic conflicts experienced by women in the 20th century through the personal writings of the American author Sylvia Plath, with particular emphasis on her journals, complemented by The Bell Jar (1963) and selected poems. The choice of the author is justified by her literary and historical relevance, as her work is permeated by experiences of depersonalization, social oppression, and psychological suffering in the face of the social roles imposed on women in the post-World War II period. AIMS: The study seeks to understand how Plath, especially through her diaries, articulated the tensions of structural oppression that shaped the subjectivity of women in her generation. It also aims to establish her role as a significant voice of confessional literature in the 20th century, despite the barriers faced as a woman in a predominantly male literary field. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The primary sources — Plath’s journals, alongside her novel and poems — provide a direct window into her subjective experience as both a woman and a writer within a patriarchal society. The methodology consisted of bibliographic and documentary analysis, grounded in sociological and gender studies theories. Émile Durkheim’s theory of suicide was also employed to broaden the interpretation of Plath’s tragic outcome as part of a wider process of social marginalization. RESULTS: APlath’s diaries reveal the intimate dimension of her struggles with the feminine ideals of the postwar era and demonstrate how these expectations deeply affected her sense of self and autonomy. Read alongside her fictional and poetic production, the journals expose the ways in which gender oppression and psychological conflict intersected in her life and writing, making visible the lived contradictions of her time. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS: This research contributes to the historiographical debate on literature and personal writings as historical sources and values the recognition of female experiences long silenced in academic spaces. It highlights how Plath’s diaries, in particular, offer profound insight into the structural oppression endured by women in the 20th century and reaffirm her place as a central figure of confessional literature.

KEYWORDS: Sylvia Plath; Gender; Women’s History; Suicide; Confessional Literature.