Module A – Essay Plath and Hughes

Resource Description

How does the study of the commonalities and collisions between the poetry of Plath and Hughes bring responders to a deeper consideration and understanding of the texts?

Intro: The poetry of Sylvia Plath with the response of Ted Hughes creates deeper understanding and consideration of the texts through the introduction of new perspectives and interpretations. Through poems within Ariel by Sylvia Plath, Plath creates perceptions of Hughes that he responds with poems within Birthday letter published early 40 years later. This call and response create a deeper understanding and consideration on topics within Plath’s and Hughes’s poetry reflecting their lives. These aspects include Plath’s father seen in Daddy
within Arial and Picture of Otto and the Shot in Birthday letters, Plath’s mental health as seen in The Arrival of the Bee Box and Fever 103 within Ariel and Fever and Bee God within Birthday Letters, and their romantic relationship as seen within Fever 103 and Lady Lazarus within Ariel and Fever and Red within Birthday Letters. The addressing of these topics first outlined Plath by Hughes assists in furthering the understanding of both poem as well as forcing the readers to question Plath’s poems. Therefore, the poetry of Sylvia Plath with the response of Ted Hughes creates deeper understanding and consideration of the texts through the introduction of new perspectives and interpretations.

Sylvia Plath’s father Otto Plath is a key figure written about within poems of Daddy, Picture of Otto and The Shot. Sylvia Plath within Daddy addresses the internal conflict within herself about her father’s death and the impact that had on her relationship with others. By saying that her father was “Not God but a swastika; No black no sky could squeak through” Plath uses the metaphor of a Swastika as symbolism for her father being a force of evil, one that disguised itself as something meaning peace and happiness but meant doom. This is contradicted by Hughes within the poem The Shot as her “Daddy had been aiming you at God; When his death touched the trigger”. Hughes contradicts Plath by using God to symbolise Plath’s need to worship a man. Furthermore, by using the reoccurring motif of bullet throughout the poem such as ‘trigger’ Hughes outlines his perspective that Plath was destined to worship a man and her father caused this as she did worship him, supported by the Electra complex. This contradiction deepens our understanding of both texts by forcing us to view Hughes perspective whilst reading Daddy to create a deeper consideration of the text and the idea of whether this was Plath’s actual thoughts. The idea of Plath finding another version of her father is extended within Daddy as “If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two—–; The vampire who said he was you”. This supports Hughes’s idea of Plath needing to find an image of her father whilst Plath iterating through the metaphorical use of vampire that Hughes was a dark character that sucked the life from her. Additionally, the dark and accusorary tone of this line implicates that Hughes was a liar within their relationship. Hughes again contradicts tis in Picture of Otto as he ‘find(s) yourself so tangled with me-; Rising from your coffin, a big shock”. Hughes whilst he addresses Otto creates the view that he did not know that he was an image of Otto through the metaphor of Otto rising form the coffin symbolising the Plath’s memory of Otto lives on within Hughes. These two quotes therefore both use dark imagery to create negative connotations of each other causing responders to reconsider their consideration of the texts and strengthening their understanding through the enlightenment of new context through the response of Hughes. Consequently, Hughes’s response to Plath about perceptions of her father within Hughes’s furthers readers understandings of both texts by providing a range or perspectives forcing them to reconsider both texts.