Ted Hughes - Birthday Letters

In the case of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, this could in fact be the case. There a lot of versions that take place in regards to the relationship between these two people. It may seem as though Sylvia’s poems and Ted’s poems would be the most accurate account of what took place in their relationship, as they were both there. This may not be the case. Plath was often experiencing emotional turmoil in regards to the death of her father and the failure to cope with this when she wrote her poetry. This could of caused her versions of the ‘truth’ to be over exaggerated due to her emotion. Hughes on the other hand would have also been emotionally involved. His poetry in ‘Birthday Letters’ was also a reaction to accusations made by Plath and other people. Could this have affected his version? Hughes also recovered a lot of the facts from Sylvia’s journal entries so this makes it second hand information too. Also, the poems cannot just be taken at face value for its ‘truths’ because different poems have been written to convey a different meaning.

When referring to Plath’s emotional state and her version

In conclusion, versions of ‘the truth’ can be changed each time it is told due to where the information came from, the emotions that are involved and the meaning that is trying to be conveyed. We can see that Plath was full of emotion and often exaggerated her feelings when she told her version of the truth. Hughes took a lot of information from his own anger and emotions and from his perspective when he told his version. He also then added information from Plath’s journal and her version of the truth. So by this time it has been told, told again and changed to suit different perspectives and the emotions involved. We can also see that the story and truth can be changed to convey a different meaning all together. So yes, it is impossible for the truth to remain exactly as it is when it is constantly retold by different people and with different emotions. The truth ends up being a story that is being told about the original story that may have or may have not happened.

Hughes poetry also delves deep into the emotional side, it is like a raw wound that has opened up to be as honest as it can allow. In his poetry he blames a lot of Plath’s problems on her obsession with her dead father. Hughes has been accused a lot since Plath’s death. In an interview with Eilat Negav, Hughes said’ From the very beginning accusing fingers were pointed at me….’ In an emotional response to these accusations, Hughes wrote a poem called ‘The Shot’. In this poem he tells how their relationship impacted on him emotionally, he responds to Plath's accusations with accusations of his own. It was strange to read a poem with such strong emotions, a poem in which Hughes metaphorically compares Plath to a bullet. In a poem written my Plath, she accuses men in her life of being vampires and ‘sucking her dry’. She claims to be a victim that had her life torn apart by the men that she loved. In Hughes poem ‘The Shot’ he retaliates to this to accusing Plath of being the exploiter and depicting himself and the other males in her life as being the victims. He describes Plath as being a high velocity bullet that only has one target, to find her father, as no one would ever be good enough to her while he was still in her memory. Plath was a bullet in search of her target, in search of ‘her god’. This very descriptive poem is so emotional it pulls you in and has you feeling for Hughes. It is so descriptive that you wonder what life must have been like for him living in her ‘daddy’s’ shadow. The strong themes and messages that he conveys have to be the truths don’t they? Or is Plath’s version in her poem ‘daddy’ the truth? How can two such emotional poems be so different? One of them has to be telling the truth, so one of them has to be lying right? No, I don’t think so. I think there were a lot of emotional things going on in both their minds. They are both telling the truth from different perspectives. That is the way they both actually saw the fact, which is how they felt. Another good example is the poem written by Plath titled ‘Whiteness I remember’ and a poem written by Hu

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