One of the most indelible memories of Sylvia Plath's 30 years was the famous and fierce hurricane of 1938 which affected Winthrop, Massachusetts on the evening of Wednesday, 21 September 1938, eighty years ago today, when Plath was nearly six years old.
Plath wrote about the hurricane in a some of her works but this post looks at just two. The first is her poem "The Disquieting Muses":
In this photo, showing the back of the 92 Johnson Avenue house in Winthrop, you can see the "study windows" Plath references in the poem. Facing the water are six, and on either side are three additional windows each. The math works out here: "twelve / Study windows..."
And another appearance of the hurricane was in her last prose piece, "Landscape of Childhood" (published as "Ocean 1212-W").
The title of Plath's prose piece comes from her grandparents phone number. Her grandparents house was 892 Shirley Street, on a thin strip of land between the Atlantic Ocean and Winthrop Bay.
In "Ocean 1212-W", Plath recalls:
In the above snippets, you can see Plath gets the year wrong by writing 1939; there were no hurricanes to affect Massachusetts that year. It should have been, of course, 1938.
Below is the front page of the Boston Globe for 22 September 1938.
Winthrop was mentioned a couple of times, too.
Sylvia Plath, her brother Warren, and their friends David Freeman and Ruth (Freeman) Geissler were photographed in their neighborhood in the aftermath of the storm. These photos are supplied by Ruth and used with her kind permission.
The first one here I believe shows a felled tree across Somerset Avenue pretty near the intersection with Somerset Terrance where David and Ruth lived. I base this on the house in the background and compared to a current Google Street View image.
The second image features a dog! It has been harder to try to trace where this is from but you can clearly see a huge bit of earth behind Plath's right shoulder and it appears they are in someone's front or back yard.
All links accessed: 8 September 2018.
Plath wrote about the hurricane in a some of her works but this post looks at just two. The first is her poem "The Disquieting Muses":
 |
| Typescript of Sylvia Plath's "The Disquieting Muses" |
In this photo, showing the back of the 92 Johnson Avenue house in Winthrop, you can see the "study windows" Plath references in the poem. Facing the water are six, and on either side are three additional windows each. The math works out here: "twelve / Study windows..."
And another appearance of the hurricane was in her last prose piece, "Landscape of Childhood" (published as "Ocean 1212-W").
The title of Plath's prose piece comes from her grandparents phone number. Her grandparents house was 892 Shirley Street, on a thin strip of land between the Atlantic Ocean and Winthrop Bay.
 |
| 892 Shirley Street, Winthrop. Photograph ©Gail Crowther |
In "Ocean 1212-W", Plath recalls:
 |
| Clips of the text from The Listener, 29 August 1963 |
Below is the front page of the Boston Globe for 22 September 1938.
Winthrop was mentioned a couple of times, too.
Sylvia Plath, her brother Warren, and their friends David Freeman and Ruth (Freeman) Geissler were photographed in their neighborhood in the aftermath of the storm. These photos are supplied by Ruth and used with her kind permission.
The first one here I believe shows a felled tree across Somerset Avenue pretty near the intersection with Somerset Terrance where David and Ruth lived. I base this on the house in the background and compared to a current Google Street View image.
The second image features a dog! It has been harder to try to trace where this is from but you can clearly see a huge bit of earth behind Plath's right shoulder and it appears they are in someone's front or back yard.
All links accessed: 8 September 2018.