Ted Hughes

• Hughes’ destruction of Plath’s diaries ( influenced by Plath’s own morbid curiosity for her dead parent.

Fulbright Scholars

• 1st poem in Birthday Letters.

• Personal, a ‘letter’ to plath. Personal pronoun unlike Hughes other poems – hughe’s rarely used 1st person.

• Personal pronouns: “you,” “I,” “your,” “my”

• Harsh “i” alliteration, “it,” – trying to pinpoint exact memories.

• Questions: Could be a critisism of the public obsession with his life ie. He is asking US, or could be questioning his own hazy memory.

• Conjectures – ability to tell the truth is limited by our own knowledge.

• Alliteration “m” sounds: mumbling,confused, remembering.

• Peach || biblical apple. ( symbolic of loss of innocence.

• 1 stanza – stream of consciousness

• The haziness of the memory gives the impression that hughes is being truthful, although gives the impression of incomplete or disjointed truths. Also allows hughes to utilise creative license.

• Juxtaposition of initial haziness with final, clear, peach image. Precise image, if hughe’s can remember the peach he is being truthful about not recalling the photograph.

• Appearance vs reality, as when hughe’s described plath’s appearance – “your veronica lake bang – not what it hid.” The picture presents one image but hughes “knows” the “truth.”

• Photograph – photographs only show their subjects from the outside: appearance vs. Reality, public appearance ,’. It’s effect on truth.

• Appearances aren’t all-telling, neither is the truth – omissions can be made/unseen.

• What we find important we remember best.

• His construction of the event is inevitably affected by his knowledge of the future.

• Plath’s “mask” to the world presented in the photograph – perpetuated a ‘lie.’

• Final lines confident and true.

• Facts, speculation, return to facts.

Your Paris

• First line ( relate to ‘fulbright scholars,’ gives the impression of hindsight.

• Impressions.

• Self-mocking, condescending.

• Minotaur metaphor (again)

• Images dark considering it’s their HONEYMOON.

• Onomatopoeia: “a shatter of exclaimations.

• 1st Half – Hughes’ critisism.

• 2nd Half – truth of Plath’s experience revealed, hindsight. Altering perspective of truth.

• Plath hid truth from Hughes’ AND herself ( by altering our perspective of reality

• Contrast – their two approaches to the experience of Paris, ALTHOUGH both are ‘haunted’ by the past.

• Hughe’s “Plain paving,” while Plath’s “waiting for your torturer”

• “i thought,” “i wanted to humour you,” = hindsight

• “your ecstasies ricocheted off the walls,” – plath’s facecious pleasure

• “my paris was a post-war utility survivor” – duality between plath’s and hughe’s paris’. “hotel des duex continents” etc.

• “scorched up every scent and sensor. And it sealed the underground, your hideout” – hughe’s unknowing of plath’s real paris.

• “your torturer,” “your practised lips,” – plath’s misleading

• “conjectural, hopelessly wrong meanings,” – hughes misunderstanding

• “you expected the final face-to-face revelation,” – hughe’s believes this

• “like a guide dog, loyal to correct your stumblings”

• “what searching miles did you drag your pain that were for me plain paving.”

• Attack on Plath’s artistic integrity ( referencing her use of nazi imagery.

Red

• Duality ( ‘if not red, then white;’ ‘only the bookshelves escaped into whiteness.’

• Sylvia: Red is a life force, vitality, the sun; Hughes: Red is blood, macabre, etc.

• White: sanitised hospitals, death, decay. In asia: mourning. Also cleanliness. “bone clinic whiteness.”

• Contrast: Each party’s different meanings for the respective colours.

• Repition of “blood”

• ‘the family bones’ – reference to plath’s father.

• ‘when YOU had YOUR way,’ insinuating Plath’s dominance in the relationship.

• ‘a judgement chamber;’ ‘a throbbing cell;’ ‘aztec altar – temple.’ – claustrophobia.

• Contrast, juxtaposition of white and red.

• Flowers: Poppies, Salvias, Roses all red, “doomed”

• “You revelled in red... I felt it raw”

• Reference to nick and the candlestick, plath’s painting.

• Overwhelming alliteration “r”

• “a little bluebird” – glimmer of hope, “the jewel you lost was blue,” only SMALL amounts of blue.

• “electrified, a guardian” blue was still vibrant, alive || red.

• Lost happiness, childhood, freedom, precious things. Her move away from the ocean (oceans are blue)

• Last poem in Birthday Letters; ,’. Last public word on his relationship w/ plath.

• Described their home in Devon and Plath’s love of red.

• Sylvia’s letter to her mother, “ted never liked blue...”

• Red/White/Blue ( colours of American flag.

Sam

- Tone: regret and disbelief

- “When I jumped a fence” ( ie. Broke out of their marraige, did wrong, “you strangled me.”

- Describes a true event, we know this from Plath’s poem “ariel” and her journals. BUT from Hughes’ perspective.

- Sylvia “strangled” Hughes’ denying him a voice (his truth) ( contrast to “adoring, hugging”

- 2nd section, in contrast to 1st ( questioning, unsure “how did you hang on?” juxtaposed with factual 1st section.

- Horse is in control ( “he galloped straight down,” “he walked into his stable,” Plath not ( “You lost your stirrups,” “reins,” “seat.” Similar to THE SHOT.

- Emotive language evoking terror/danger: “horribly hard swift river...so far beneath you”

- Onomatopoeia: eg. “Clangour of iron shoes”

- 2nd person ( addressed to Plath. Personal. “It was all of a piece to you”

- Alliteration: “horribly hard”

- Allegory for the drama of their life together

- “White” ( links to Sylvia’s poems, Hughes’ “Red;” Representative of death.

- Repition of “white” in first stanza conjures images of death, sets tone of death. Ominous.

The Minotaur

- “My mother’s heirloom sideboard” ( personal, valuable

- “Demented by my being twenty minutes late/for baby-minding.” ( exaggeration.

- “Go on, smash it into kindling” ( taunting

- “We’ll be away” – inclusive, taking credit for Plath’s work

- “the goblin” – plath’s psychosis

- 5th stanza ( “the bloody end of the skein..etc” ( blame. Repitition of “your.”

- Guilt ( handed you the “bloody skein” that unravelled her life.

- Destructive power of Plath’s personality.

- Hughes’ perspective: Possible exaggeration, particularly in 2nd stanza.

- Savage critisism and blame of Plath for destroying everbodies lives.

- Onomatopoeia: “smashed,” “snapped,” “echoing,” “bellowing”

- Sarcasm ( “Marvellous!”

- Minotaur metaphor.

- “grave of your risen father – and your own corpse in it” ( minotaur metaphor, intertextuality w/ your paris, the shot

- Structure ( organised, shows control despite the subject matter, shows Hughes’ to be emotionally unattached when retelling the event ,’. Less biased. And Sylvie appears irrational.

- Considered, hindsight ,’. Time’s influence on truth.

- Quoting of speech: seems true enough.

The Shot

- Repitition in 1st stanza “God” ( reinforces Plath’s obsession.

- Hughes’ version of Plath’s obsession with Otto.

- Psychological speculation ( is this truth?

- Uses facts to make an account of their relationship.

- Plath needed to worship ( exclusive, private activity: excluded Hughes’ possibly making him bitter.

- Appearance/Deception

- Range of emotions through varying tones.

- Hyperbole ( Particularly “bullet” metaphor.

- Tone: know-it-all, judgemental, mocking

- Metaphors: “when his death touched the trigger”

- “your ricocheted” ( symbolic of Plath’s percieved lack of control

- 2nd person ( addressed to Plath

- Satire ( “the elect...died on impact”; elect = god’s chosen people

- “behind what looked like rebounds” ( appearance vs. Reality

- “even the cheek-scar” ( reference to Plath’s previous suicide attempt

- Juxtaposition in 2nd stanza ( weak images eg. “provisional, speculative, mere auras,” “sob-sodden kleenex;” vs. Strong images eg. “you were undeflected,” “gold-jacketed, solid silver, nickel-tipped. Trajectory perfect.”

- Duality: “till your real target/hid behind me.”