Ted_Hughes

The poetry of Ted Hughes presents his own personal perspective behind his experiences with Sylvia Plath, within a condensed intimate and emotional form that persuaded me to embrace his perspective. Plath's poems, however, in an equally persuasive way, presented a contrary 'perspective" Al Alvarez, in her autobiography "Where did it all go right'" uses a different form to present his perspective on the perspective. Ultimately we must conclude that each of these representations is of merit, in communicating a personal perspective. Hughes, in The Shot examines his version of the perspective behind Plath's relationship with him and her father He suggests that she was a "god-seeker", and sources her dependency from her father: "the god with the smoking gun". Indeed, he uses the extended metaphor of Plath as a bullet to suggest that she was "trajectory perfect" for her death: "you were gold-jacketed, solid-silver, nickel-tipped". He enforces his own naive innocence with the simile "vague as mist". Critic Erica Wagner suggests that Hughes uses "uneven, unexpected, consonant-heavy rhymes to hammer the reader with his perspective". In this way, his representation is indeed persuasive. It is argued that he attempts to establish his status as a victim after much criticism following Plath’s suicide. This awareness of audience is no doubt a factor in his poetry's persuasiveness, although Wagner suggests that for Hughes "there was no poem that did not come from an inner-perspective". Al Alvarez presents a different "perspective" in her autobiography. He suggests that Hughes "handed Plath the key" to the "cellcage that was her mind". Here he uses metaphor and emotive language to appeal to his audience and achieve his purpose - to characterise Hughes in a negative way. On other occasions, however, Alvarez uses a formal register and biographical tone to add credibility to his argument. This combination has led to Alvarez's views beginning what Janet Malcolm called a "feminist parable", and persuaded me to an extent that his perspective was credible. Plath supports the idea that Hughes misunderstood her complex "love/hate" relationship with her father in paddy. She uses repetition and Nazi imagery to enforce her perspective: "I was always scared of you, with your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo ... Panzer Man, Panzer Man O you" These techniques, and a jarring rhyme, create a real sense of emotion to her verse, conveying a perspective that Hughes could not recognise in highly persuasive, personal terms, for which the poetic medium allows. In Whiteness l Remember, Plath represents her perspective behind the event where her horse, Sam. galloped away with her on top. She uses enjambment to create a sense of breathlessness, fear and pace: "Green grass streaming/houses a river of/pale fronts and thatched rooves/the hard road/an anvil". In this way, her poem uses the sound and energy of the verse to be persuasive. Yet I remained aware that Hughes presents a different perspective - he suggests that rather than the "white, calm stallion" having bolted for "ill will" (bearing in mind that both Plath and Hughes use the stallion as a metaphor for Hughes) but rather, that Plath “flung yourself off/to trip me/and tripped me/and lay dead". He too uses enjambment to put forth his idea of the perspective in this event - that he was not to blame, and that Plath "fell" from this world through her own intentions. Both perspectives can be seen to show a vivid, emotional perspective, and thus while both are persuasive, neither one can be discounted. Hughes examines the personality of Plath in Red, yet his modes of representation here again show the highly complex relationship that exists between representation and meaning. He uses the colour red to present what he saw to be Plath's negative aspects - her dangerous sense of instability and penchant for 'sob sodden Kleenex", her obsession with death. His accumulation of imagery of a wound, using this colour is both visual and tactile, confronting the responder with the pain Hughes felt through these aspects of his wife: "Darkenings, concealments, the curtains ruby corduroy blood ...I felt it raw". The poetic form allows for this persuasive imagery, and I was indeed persuaded by Hughes' sense of regret at having lost Plath, which he expresses using a change in tone and the colour blue, to represent her delicate nurturing aspects that were "lost" in "a pit of red" "kingfisher blue silks from San Francisco". The sibilance here is convincing in the wistful tone it crease. Yet Plath sees blue as "substanceless" in Ariel, showing that conflicting perspectives indeed exist, and reminding me that while persuasive, Hughes' perspective is personal. Moreover, Al Alvarez shows using a considered, reflective tone that even her medium, despite lacking the brazen emotion of poetry, can persuade us as to his perspective. He uses anecdotes and personal asides, combined with emotive language to engage with his audience: "I find it astonishing, heartbreaking, thinking how lonely she was". The semantics "astonishing" and "heartbreaking" encourage us to relate to her perspective. It can be clearly seen that a multiplicity of perspectives exist concerning the experiences between Plath and Hughes, pertaining to relationships, events and personality. Yet each composer uses the merits of their form, combined with personal engagement and emotion, to persuade us that their version of the perspective is correct.