Category Great Womens

Sylvia Plath was born in Boston. Her father, Otto Plath was a professor of biology, who specialized in bees. Sylvia Plath was a brilliant student. She studied at the Smith College from 1950 to 1955. Later, she described this phase of her life in ‘The Bell Jar’, an autobiographical novel which is now considered a classic. As a young woman, Sylvia Plath suffered from spells of depression. She married the poet Ted Hughes. Sylvia Plath committed suicide at the age of 31. ‘Ariel’, a collection of Plath’s poems published after her death, astonished the writing world with its power. The poems were carefully crafted. Ariel became one of the best selling volumes of poetry, published in England and America in the twentieth century. Plath’s ‘Collected Poems’ which was assembled by Ted Hughes after Plath’s death, won a Pulitzer Prize. 

Corazon Aquino was the first women President of the Philippines. Her husband Senator Benigno Aquino Jr was a fierce critic of Ferdinand Marcos, then the President of the Philippines. He was assassinated. Corazon Aquino spearheaded the nationwide protest, called the People Power Revolution, against Ferdinand Marcos. She toppled Marcos from power, and became president in 1986. Corazon Aquino restored democracy in the Philippines. 

“I feel more comfortable with gorillas than with people”, said Dian Fossey. A study trip to Africa in1963 proved to be a turning point in her life. In Rwanda, she met Dr. Louis Leakey, who was studying fossils. She also saw gorillas for the first time, a sight that thrilled her to the core. Three years later, Leakey sent Fossey to study gorillas in the Congo. However, political violence forced her to flee to Rwanda. Here she set up the Karisoke Research Centre in the Virguna National Park. Fossey conducted path breaking research in this center. She lived alone with the gorillas for long periods, and won their trust. Fossey’s research won her name and fame. She fought the gorilla hunters and wrote a bestselling book, ‘Gorillas in the Mist’. Dian Fossey was murdered in her cabin at the research centre in December 1985. Her killers have never been identified.

Toni Morrison is the first black woman, to receive the Nobel Prize for literature. She was born in Ohio to Georg Wofford, a shipyard welder, in 1931. By day, she worked as an editor in a publishing house. She wrote in the night. She found writing to be exciting, and her characters took on a life of their own. Her first novel, ‘The Bluest Eye’ was about a girl who prayed for blue eyes. ‘Sula’, ‘Song of Solomon’, ‘Tar Baby’ and ‘Beloved’ are some of her major novels. In ‘Tar Baby’, she describes for the first time interactions between black and white characters ‘Beloved’, which tells the story of an escaped slave and her children, won Morrison the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1988. She received the Nobel Prize 1993. 

          ‘The diary of Anne Frank’ is a touching record of a young girl’s life in the backdrop of Nazi cruelty. Annie Frank was born to an upper class Jewish family in Germany. They moved to Amsterdam, to escape from the clutches of Adolf Hitler, but Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940. On her thirteenth birthday, Anne was gifted a small book by her father Otto Frank. ‘Our many Jewish friends and acquaintances are being taken away. We assume that most of them are being murdered’, wrote Anne Frank.

            Three weeks after Anne’s birthday, the family went into hiding. The daily life in the secret shelter, Anne’s deepest thoughts about life, war, and her longing for peace are recorded in the diary. The Frank family and their friends were betrayed, and Anne Frank died in a German concentration camp. Anne Frank’s diary sold over 25 million copies worldwide.

           Margaret Thatcher was Britain’s first female prime minister, and served three consecutive terms in office. She was born on 13th October 1925. She went to Oxford University, and then became a research chemist, retraining to become a barrister in 1954. In 1951, she married a businessman, Denis Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher became Conservative Member of Parliament in 1959. In1979, she became prime minister.

           Thatcher introduced many reforms, like privatization of state owned industries, during her first term, which helped the economy grow. Then there was an unpredicted event- a war began over the Falklands Islands, off the coast of South America. The islands were British, and the people living there wanted things to stay that way. But, the government of Argentina claimed, the islands were theirs, and invaded them in April 1982. Britain swung into action, and soon the islands were under British control again. This victory impressed the people in Britain and they elected the government again. Margaret became a very well known international figure. At home, her government introduced huge reforms in all sectors, all of them very controversial. Thatcher’s time as PM was very important in British history.