‘ ..how can
I accuse
Ted Hughes
of what the entire British and American
literary and critical establishment
has been at great lengths to deny
without ever saying it in so many words, of course,
the murder of Sylvia Plath…’ (Robin Morgan)
Not many people knew that Sylvia Plath was a talented artist. London’s Mayor Gallery showed her drawings for the first time. If Ted Hughes could paint or draw, the world would have known about it decades ago.
Sylvia was sent to a psychiatric hospital. She received electric shock treatment for months. It is so hard to believe a talented poet and artist like Sylvia Plath was mentally sick. She was different from others. She was more intelligent as well as sensitive than others. That was probably a good reason to accuse her of being crazy. Ted claimed Sylvia’s suicide was inevitable. But many people do not think it was inevitable. Ted’s behavior particularly his decision to leave her for other woman after six years of marriage, pushed her over the brink! Yes, it did.
Ted destroyed Sylvia’s last journals which contained entries from the winter of 1962 up to her death in February 1963. Ted wrote, ‘I destroyed her journals because I did not want her children to read it.’ What did Sylvia write that Ted did not want her children to read? We all can guess Sylvia wrote about Ted and about Ted and about Ted, not about the Ted everybody knew as a wonderful poet but about the Ted Sylvia knew as an abusive husband. Writers and poets are against censorship, they believe in freedom of expression but Ted’s acts did not prove that he believed in freedom of expression. I so much wish to read Sylvia Plath’s journals that were destroyed by Ted Hughes, one of the twentieth century’s greatest English poets.
Nicholas Hughes, the son of Plath and Hughes, killed himself. Did he get his mother’s depression genes! You may say so. But I wonder, why Ted’s second wife Assia Wevill and their four year old daughter Shura Wevill committed suicide exactly the same way Sylvia committed suicide using a gas oven! Is it just coincidence or Ted killed them all?
You might like to acquaint yourself a bit more with the subjects of poetry, mental illness and suicide before posting another such ignorant tirade. Here’s a good place to start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Poets_who_committed_suicide
“A mentally ill patient could not write the poems Sylvia wrote.”
I have to admit I’m not familiar with what she wrote and I most certainly don’t want to condone the horrendous practices in earlier psychiatry.
But this quote just strikes me as so incredibly wrong. I am fairly certain that mental illness doesn’t need to make people incapable of creating beautiful, insightful and lasting things.
In fact, it needn’t keep people from being high achievers in any respect.
It’s unforgivable to declare someone mentally ill just in order to shut them up and so I agree with the message of the post.
But so is using an actually existing mental illness as an excuse to shut someobody up.
Sorry. A late night post. The mistake is now corrected.
Taslima – again you are writing about Westerners without taking the permission of great white masters such as Tigerloaf and Gorbachev!!! When will you realize that we need their permission before we can say certain things? They and their like are the imams and puruths of the Western world. Only when they allow it, can we speak our inferior brown minds freely.
Of course, these great white male imams have assumed that you have no right to speak about white women and white culture, this being their domain. They thought they could cut you down to size by their rudeness and thinly disguised racist condescension. Pity – it’s not working.
Roar, sister, roar. Say what you want, and sucks to these self-styled imams of a different stripe, but with the same desire to censor and control that you’ve just pointed out in Ted Hughes. The destroying of his late wife’s journals was indeed a despicable act.
Now, like good brown slaves, let us wait for Gorbachev, one of the other “non-racist” imams here, to come and dictate to us what we may say or not say, analyze or not analyze, discuss or not discuss.
And these people claim to be for freedom of speech and thought. Only the kind THEY want, I guess.
Interesting that Tigerloaf, the Western imam here (and there are quite a few others) to protect the great Western culture from the silly tirades of inferior brown slaves – oops, women, had nothing to say about the quote from American poet Robin Morgan with which you opened your blog post. Why didn’t he? Because all his attention seemed to have been taken up with getting his knickers in a knot at your audacity – you dared to talk of Western cultural flaws, while being brown. THAT was unforgivable. You had to be punished with a verbal tirade. You had to be shown your place.
Instead of noting that you had quoted a celebrated American feminist poet who was also questioning and seeking to re-examine the trauma of Sylvia Plath, and that therefore you obviously knew a bit about poetry, female poetry, and so on – he hastened to verbally browbeat you. CAN’T be non-white and criticize whites. NOT allowed. Keep to your ghetto, uppity brown person.
These sort of people are racists. Pure and simple. There is really no kinder or truer way to put it. Racists. Period.
Except that Tigerloaf’s criticism was quite accurate, in that he was objecting to the statement “A mentally ill patient could not write the poems Sylvia wrote.” Obviously, given the large list of poets who committed suicide. Pointing out a legitimate flaw in reasoning is not censoring, oppression, or racism. It’s called a “discussion.” You seem to be the only one here who has been acting racist.
Hell, the worst Gorbachev did was point out that Taslima might not understand the intricacies of Western culture due to being raised in a very different culture. Culture. Not “race.” Unless you think people who criticize Islam are, in fact, being racist. But, hey, maybe you’ve never heard of “culture shock.” It exists. People of one culture, whatever it may be, often don’t understand the complexities of other cultures. This is to be expected regardless of “race.”
I hope with that cleared up, you will begin debating people with whom you disagree with good faith, rather than derailing any meaningful conversation with baseless accusations. I, and I’m sure many others, would be much more interested in hearing your actual opinions and reasoning.
Below are my comments on your article.
Perhaps more interesting (to me, if to no-one else) would be why I felt I had to comment. I’m not really sure. I believe I would have wanted to comment on this article whoever had written it. But I can’t be certain of that – who of us understands all our motivations?
Anyway, since your article seems to have been intended to start a conversation, I’ve finally decided to post this.
I knew, in general, about Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. Your article prompted me to look a little deeper into the matter, which was interesting.
Ted Hughes was an unfaithful husband and lover. But if he was abusive as well as unfaithful, it seems odd that his second wife stayed with him for 28 years until his death.
Sylvia Plath was severely ill with clinical depression, and attempted suicide on at least one occasion, before she met Ted Hughes. So we can’t blame Hughes for her depressive nature.
I find it very easy to believe that a talented poet had severe depression (for which ECT was a standard treatment, and even today is used when all else fails).
I don’t think we’ll ever have proof or disproof of any physical or mental abuse (apart from the lack of faithfulness) in their relationship.
You think he was an abusive husband. He might have been. I think we can’t know, but if I had to make a guess, I think he wasn’t.
Destroying the journals was, I agree, unforgivably wrong.
Your final dichotomy is a false one. The manner of the second suicide was obviously not a coincidence, but that doesn’t mean that “Ted killed them all”.
Assia Wevill and their four year old daughter Shura Wevill were not mentally ill. Why did they commit suicide?
Shura Wevill didn’t kill herself. She was murdered by her mother.
There’s a biography of Wevill, A Lover of Unreason: the Life and Tragic Death of Assia Wevill, by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev, which discusses her life and death. It is pretty plain that Wevill, like Plath, had the sort of personality and background that makes suicide more likely. It is also pretty plain that Hughes was attracted to women who had that sort of personality- or, rather, with other qualities that often go along with such personalities. It’s also likely that what Hughes and what he offered, the ‘magic’ of a poet/shaman as partner/spouse, may have been particularly attractive to people with such problems. That’s aside from the complications caused by the poetic ambitions of Hughes, Plath and Wevill. Coal gas, used in England in the 1960s and used by both Plath and Wevill to kill themselves, was the most easily available and most effective way of killing oneself available at the time.
Hughes undoubtedly had some responsibility for Plath and Wevill and for their deaths but to speak of ‘murder’ in either case is nonsense
“But if he was abusive as well as unfaithful, it seems odd that his second wife stayed with him for 28 years until his death.”
Yea, totally. Why ever would woman being abused be afraid to leave her abuser? Checkmate, feminists!
Ted Hughes just found himself a second wife who was willing to put up with abuse without protest. The fact that she was willing to do so proves nothing.
It is difficult to explain Sylvia Plath’s suicide because as with many suicides there are so many different factors in play. I try to sort it all out again in AMERICAN ISIS: THE LIFE AND ART OF SYLVIA PLATH. St. Martin’s Press will publish the book in late January 2013, marking the 50th annniversary of Plath’s death on February 11, 1963. I doubt my narrative will please everyone, but at least it is a new account based on archival material previous biographers did not see and on fresh interviews.
The issue of responsibility for another’s suicide is a difficult one. Abuse can certainly push one to believe that there is no escape except through death, and a pre-existing mental illness will exacerbate that belief.
Was Assia Wevill mentally ill? We may never know. She may never have been disgnosed, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t ill. There is evidence that nearly aall suicides (in western culture) are commited by people who are mentally ill.
Having said all that, by most accounts, Hughes was a real shit of a man.
Paul D. – Hughes and Wevill were only together for six years. She killed herself when Hughes moved on to someone new. After that, he did his best to ipretend she had never existed.
Btw Taslima, thanks for the heads up on Plath the artist. I remember reading that she ‘sketched’, but I had no idea she wa so talented.
We will never see again the exhibition of her drawings. All are now sold to different people. Her daughter did not keep anything but the drawing of Ted Hughes. If I were Sylvia’s daughter I would never sell any of her drawings. You want to say Assia was probably mentally ill. What about the child? Was four years old Shura also mentally ill! You know what? I think among all of them it was Ted who was mentally ill. He was a poet cum serial killer.
‘If I were Sylvia’s daughter I would never sell any of her drawings.
You aren’t Plath’s- and Hughes’s- daughter, so you’re in no position to say what you would do or- by implication- what she should have done.
‘I think among all of them it was Ted who was mentally ill. He was a poet cum serial killer.’
Well, Hughes’s own theories of poetry- which were very like Plath’s, in fact- involved a load of nonsense about ‘black gods’ and ‘white goddesses’ but do you really think he crept up on Plath and Wevill and somehow held them down and turned on the gas andleft them to die? That he literally, physically, killed them? If not, you are exaggerating Hughes’s part and diminishing Plath’s and Wevill’s own parts in their own lives and deaths- turning them into appendages to Hughes.
A better poet than Plath or Hughes asked:
You- and probably Hughes as well- answer ‘yes’. A poet’s works and a poet’s responsibilities- anyone’s works and responsibilities- are more complicated than that.
I do not think Ted literally, physically, killed his two wives and a daughter. But I believe that he abused them so much,made them feel so small and insignificant and worthless that they didn’t hesitate to kill themselves.
You’re assuming- again- that Shura Wevill chose to die. What makes you think that?
By ‘abused his two wives’, do you mean that Hughes physically attacked them? Is there any evidence for it? If not, we are discussing the interactions of three intelligent, complicated and flawed people with- in the case of Hughes and Plath- very strange theories of poetic inspiration and the price they were willing to pay for it.
What makes you think Plath felt ‘so small and insignificant’ when she killed herself? She was writing extra-ordinary poems- poems which many people think made the earlier poems she and Hughes had written look insignificant- in fact, the difference between the elation of writing poetry like that and dealing with two small children in a small flat in the worst winter for many years may have made life outside her poetry seem even worse. Philip Larkin thought that Plath’s depression and her later poetry were interconnected- that they fed off each other- and wondered if the price was worthwhile.
Wevill wasn’t Hughes’s wife. That was one of the things that worried her about their relationship- that he hadn’t married- woudn’t marry- her. She had literary hopes, but she wasn’t as obsessed as Hughes or Plath, and she was someone who would worry about marriage so she probably accepted her husbands’ or lovers’ valuation of her and valued herself by their importance- indeed, she seems to have made a career out of upwardly mobile marriage before she met Hughes- but she was over forty, worried about losing her beauty and attractiveness to men and without other wats to identify herself when she killed herself.
An actuary, given their family and personal histories before they met Hughes, would assess both Plath and Wevill as well above average in their chances of killing themselves. This doesn’t excuse Hughes, who- in his early life, at least- seems to have thought poetic dedication meant he could do whatever he wanted without regard for other people, but to claim he ‘murdered’ Wecill and Plath diminishes their own autonomy and- especially in Plath’s case- her own identity and ability to choose.
A four year-old committed suicide? Really?
The four year old’s death was definitely the result of murder. Whether Assia was mentally ill or not, I have no idea. If she took her own life and that of her child, she likely was. If Hughes abused her, and she committed suicide, then he is certainly responsible for her death. However, determining that ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ would be difficult.
Thank you for editing your post to reflect the earlier comments re: mental illness. Mental illness, artistic talent, and great intelligence are in no way mutually exclusive; in fact, in many people, they converge. I’m a little troubled by your insistence that Hughes’ later wife was /not/ mentally ill; of course I’m not saying she was, but that’s not a thing that someone completely unconnected from a person can say about them posthumously. You can’t always tell even about people you know personally. In addition, it’s not a BAD THING to have a mental illness; it doesn’t mean one is morally deficient or an ogre.
Of course not. It is not a bad thing to have a mental illness. But it is a bad thing to tell other people have mental illnesses, only because we are not able to justify their actions.
Well, I realize it’s probably not your intent, but it seems like you’re flinging around the “mentally ill” label like a weapon. Instead of the surrounding stigma, you’ve identified mental illness itself as the monster. You “defended” Plath and Wevill against “accusations” of mental illness, because obviously they could not have been, they were so good and gentle and talented and sensitive, and must be protected against the stain of mental sickness. Then you turn that label back onto Hughes, whom you clearly dislike–please understand, I’m not attempting to defend his character here; from everything I’ve heard, he was quite a nasty man. But the implication in this post is that Hughes was nasty and abusive and unlikable and a liar, and was therefore mentally ill.
I do want to thank you, though, for sharing some of Plath’s sketches; I hadn’t seen them before and they’re so gorgeous.
Thanks. You have made me think.
An interesting thought. I don’t know if the idea of Ted Hughes killing Sylvia Plath has any more weight than most conspiracy theories, however. I’m disinclined to believe until someone presents actual evidence rather than simply “Well, it looks kind of suspicious and it feels right, so it must have happened that way.” It’s the same reasoning as the Moon landing deniers, the 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists, and UFO believers, and, I’m afraid, the same amount of hard evidence. Which is to say none.
Still, as an artist, myself, I greatly appreciate the sketches. She definitely had some skill. Pity that her work isn’t more well known. Really, it’s a pity she didn’t make more work. Such is the unfortunate fate of the great artists, it seems.
When she realized that Ted was not going to come back, after the cooling off phase in which she’d previously tossed him out on his ass in Devon, she was strong enough, to consider divorce, but we’ll never know b/c Ted ‘lost’ and burnt those last days of her journals. I’m willing to be the bank, she would still be alive (or at least much longer) has the ‘good’ doctor, checked in with her long standing physician in the states, as to the medication that inflicted a serious stability issue, on top of an existing, fragile situation. Adverse reactions to medications such as those, are DEADLY. Sylvia Plath, I believe, would have come out of this somehow, she just n eeded time, proper care, a different season, and not being alone in flat with two children, while Ted was out partying constantly and publicly with his mistress, the ‘lovely’ Assia. What kind of man, leaves a baby that is not even a year old, and another under the age of 3? I dont care to know his reasons, I only care to find the truths. He was a selfish man, like my father, who did the same. I thank my luck, my mother wasn’t in the same situation and had family to come home to immediately, and money in the bank b/c her family had it to give. She didn’t do therapy, no medications, offered after cool off phase, to do marriage counseling, dad refused, went off with mistress and married her. Then left her as well, when my half brother was just 3 yrs old. What really fries my brains, is that he got his wife’s estate (Plath), and published her PRIVATE JOURNALS. WITH WHO’S PERMISSION?? HOW DARE HIM AND HIS FUCKING SISTER DO SUCH A THING. I’m irate as if I were Plath herself speaking…They got uber wealthy, he didn’t do much writing, clearly instead, he basically made off on her death and her material. I despise him, I wish she had killed him and Assia instead. She could easily have gotten off with her history, within a few years, on temporary insanity plea. SHE EARNED IT. IF A MAN CHEATS AND DOES NOT STOP AND HAS CHILDREN AND ACTUALLY STILL HAS LOVE FOR HIS WIFE EVEN THOUGH HE IS CARELESS ABOUT IT and PUBLICLY SHOWING OFF HIS MISTRESS AS TED DID, a man like that, deserved at least, to have his little balls cut off…A WOMAN SCORNED KEEP THAT ONE IN MIND, WE ARE NOT CRAZY WE ARE PISSED OFF. Plath was not so much pissed, but I wish she had been. Ultimately, she got her own revenge in time, which is enough for me. If i ever marry and my man cheats, he’s going to lose his testacles, guaranteed.
From the Bell Jar it is clear as crystal that the last thing Sylvia Plath should do would be to marry. To marry and/or have children. She wanted to be the arrow. Not the place where the arrow came from. The Bell Jar curtails swiftly. You are not sure if Esther (six letters, Sylvia) is going to strike out successfully, or relapse. It is left fragile, friable, an unknowable ending. Now we know. It has NOTHING to do with Ted Hughes.
What I cannot forgive him for is destroying part of her work. Maybe she ranted against him, why, of course she did but what an insignificant thing in the wider history. Its like destroying part of shakespeare’s writings. Something was created, something was destroyed. Her journals, her work to me, seem like a continuous suicide note. An explanation. Meant to be read. What Ted Hughes destroyed was meant to be read. By him, by us, by her children (i assume this from Slyvia’s lioness courage, holding back nothing), by generations to come. An insular, demeaning act of vandalism, for paltry reasons. He could have sent them to an attorney or the British Library with instructions to publish at a 2050 or later date. It was self protectionism and small mindedness. Sylvia’s explanations, her voice throughout her life, was dedicated to us, the big wide world. Badly done, for that. Ted Hughes.
Do not know where to start, scared to say what I want to express; I believe it is strange that the Wevill’s hadn’t met prior to calling to see the Hughes’ apartment. I believe Assia met him, or husband had, met Ted, prior. This has never been confirmed. I believe that has Plath not been on the medication in which she was having a severe reaction to, in the states, put on in England by mistake for lack of the doctor contacting her therapist in the Boston, that had she not been placed on it, she would lived through this, at least, that is my belief. Adverse reactions to a medication such as what she had been taking, caused her death. I know b/c I was on a similar one and within a few days, I wanted and thought of ways to kill myself, and that was not like me. I tossed it out fortunately. However, I often also wonder, why there was no investigation with the doctor who prescribed what may have contributed to her death. People want to believe that simply b/c she was a woman scorned, in a cold flat, with two children and a missing husband screwing another woman (I HATE TED, my father did the same, married the woman, and again did to her, what he did to my mother and my half brother, when we were just BABIES, a REAL MAN DOES NOT DO THIS, HE SHOULD HAVE HAD HER COMMITTED AND BOTH GO TO THERAPY TOGETHER, instead, he thought with his ‘other head’ just like my father did and later admitted to as much). Meanwhile, again, even though people want to say, that b/c Plath had a history of suicide, so did I, but I’m still here and I’m not going anywhere. I never had therapy, I simply didn’t marry, didn’t have children, and opted to stay away from ‘fame’ as a gifted writer at a young also, like Plath, writing poetry and short stories, diary etc..from the age of 9…Sorry for my run-on fragmented sentences, but my anger is up front here, and hard to think straight. I believe truly, Plath intended to divorce him, and that he showed up, fucked her, and left her, once again…With Assia situation, and Ted’s selfishness when he could have had it all with Plath, had they simply stayed in Devon and worked it out (she loved him, but he didn’t fight for her, so obviously, like my mother, she had to force him out, and both gladly did so, to women who were damaged as well, making one wonder about Ted’s ‘needs’ and ‘desires’ when he had two babies to care for, and an unstable woman he loved, but kept cheating on instead of making it right). Had he left Assia, Plath would have taken him back after a cooling off period, everyone KNOWS this. When Plath realized of the pregnancy, and that Ted was not about to walk away and come back to his family, I suppose it only makes sense, she’d want to divorce and move on. Does this sound like a woman who would have killed herself AGAIN with two children, she loved…No, there are conspiracies and lies everywhere. As for her last days’ journal, he burned them, to hide and cover up, TRUTHS he simply didn’t or could not allow the public to find out about. The icing on the cake is that this man, allowed himself to strike it rich, off of her, and her journals which are PRIVATE, were published. I dont care what people wanted, the woman deserved privacy. Those were NOT for the public. He and his stupid sister Olywnn (sic) being left in charge of her estate, yet how do we know, since her last journal was missing, disappeared or burnt as various outlets say… Sylvia would not have wanted ‘that woman’ Olywnn to have had the power over Plath’s material at all. This makes me fume to the point I often wonder, if I hear Sylvia speaking nearby me, b/c the anger isn’t mine is it? OR IS IT…I AM I AM I. I often wonder about that…Ted was a schmuck, supposedly he also disliked Jews, and made his money, off of his dead wife. He is in every way, responsible for her death, suicidal aside, had he taken it to heart, all that he knew about his wife and what her mother had warned to him, how could such a man blatantly say, that Plath, his wife, would have done to herself, death, inevitably? HE WAS SUCH A FOOL AND SUCH A LYING CONNIVING MAN. HE DIDNT SUPPORT HER PROPERLY, HE DID NOT TREAT HER RIGHT IN THE END, NOR DID HE THINK TO SIMPLY DIVORCE HER IF THERAPY FOR THE TWO IN COUNSELING WERE TO HAVE FAILED HAD HE BOTHERED TO TRY LONGER AND HARDER TO SAVE THE MARRIAGE IF HE TRULY LOVED HER AS HE SAID HE DID…For his daughter, shame on her, waiting so long, to read her mother’s poetry, simply b/c she thought it might ‘biase’ her own writing? She wasn’t even successful as a writer, until AFTER she was appointed to do the forward, and handle the estate later on. I find it disgusting that she could go so many decades and never desire to read anything her mom wrote…b/c she was worried it would affect her own material? What material? She was not successful until later!!!! And at best, will never produce anything substantial until she writes what she knows, and I’m certain she DOES KNOW some things that are left in question. Just b/c someone had a hard time and did some things questionable, suicide, and dating multiple men (so what, look at us all now, the kids these days, on herion at 12, virginity lost at 13 etc..), Plath was EVERY SINGLE WOMAN I KNOW, but not willing to admit. Growing up back then, being smart and beautiful and ‘tall’ for that era, of course she had some self esteem issues. Of course she made mistakes, but honestly, the woman is no different than us, just went to extremes instead, whereas most of us women, bring back to balance is all. That saying from somewhere “have you ever thought your train moving, while standing still? Have your stolen something, when you had the cash? Maybe I was crazy, or maybe, it was the 60’s”..something like that. point is, women have always been treated as the lesser of the sexes, yet pull off more than any man could do. We cook, we clean, we work, we study, we birth children, we type your shit for you and get no credit…THE ONLY MISTAKE PLATH MADE, WAS IN NOT KILLING ASSIA AND TED HERSELF. If it had been me, a woman scorned, I would have lost my mind, and even with children, would have gone on a such a bender, and not before taking my own life, would have taken theirs. NO WOMAN SHOULD EVER TAKE UP WITH A MARRIED UNTIL HE IS DIVORCED, NO EXCUSES. Assia got what Assia deserved, but Shura did not. That is my only sadness. Assia was a real asshole…Just like my stepmoms both were. You have to be a child of this kind of collapsed marriage, to relate. And I certainly do relate. What I do not get, is why Plath didn’t simply stab choke kill those two in their sleep….THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN SATISFACTION…for me at any rate. Judge me as you will, I care not. I AM I AM I.
I’m not sure where to begin to explain how extremely offensive this entire post is. “It is so hard to believe a talented poet and artist like Sylvia Plath was mentally sick.”
Why is it so hard for you to believe that people who suffer from mental illness are capable of being talented? The fact that Sylvia Plath suffered from depression is indisputable. She attempted suicide before she met her husband Ted Hughes and struggled with depression after her father died when she was young. None of us can ever know the true story between Ted and Sylvia, and I don’t disagree that his actions and treatment of her could have assisted in convincing her to commit suicide. But it seems as though you are saying that because she was so brilliant and ahead of her time that it is inconceivable that she suffered from mental illness. People who suffer from mental illness are not “crazy” or incapable. Mental illness is a disease and the way that you speak of if is beyond offensive and ignorant. You conveniently claim that Ted Hughes was the murderer and that his motive was “mental illness” without any evidence whatsoever. Congratulations, you’ve painted the picture of another mentally ill murderer, instead of focusing on the tragedy that was Sylvia’s suicide and the battles that she and others like her face daily and the inhumane (and not much improved to this day) treatment of those who suffer from mental illness. You are adding to an already disgusting stigma. I’m shocked that someone who claims to be a “feminist” could be so close-minded.