One day in 1963, feminist icon, Smith College graduate, poetess-in-her-own-right, mother of 2 young children and wife of the future Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath stuck her head into the oven and turned on the gas. Out, out she snuffed her life like a candle. It has long been thought that her husband's infidelities killed her, perhaps because he always said so:
Shortly after Sylvia's suicide, Sigmund visited Hughes in London. "He looked absolutely distraught," she recalls.
"He handed me a copy of The Bell Jar [Plath's autobiographical novel] and said: 'It doesn't fall to many men to murder a genius.' When I remonstrated with him, he said: 'I hear the wolves howling at night.' I could see the man was in pieces.
"Though he didn't behave well with Sylvia, Ted was not the villain he has been made out to be. After Sylvia's death, he went from one affair to another, hoping he could assuage his guilt and misery."
This idea of Ted killing Sylvia did gain credit when the woman Ted cheated on Sylvia with, then killed herself and their 4 year-old love child:
There is little doubt that Plath committed suicide at least in part because of her husband's affair with Assia. Six years later, Assia also took her own life.
Shura, her four-year-old daughter by Hughes, was found dead at her side in the gas-filled room. Hughes had to live with the triple tragedy until his own death in 1998.
The triple tragedy did not ruin Ted's career. England made him Poet Laureate in 1984 and shortly before his death Queen Elizabeth granted him the award of the Order of Merit. He met and married another woman, a nurse, who he remained with until his death nearly 30 years later. But Ted did suffer abuse from Sylvia's unforgiving fans for the rest of his life:
The ever reclusive Hughes had chosen not to defend himself against a storm of abuse from fans of Syliva Plath. He made few public appearances and, until the publication of Birthday Letters, made no comment on his six-year marriage...
...Some Plath admirers called him a murderer and his name has been hacked off of her gravestone in Yorkshire, northern England, several times.
Since a new book is about to hit the stands on who really killed Sylvia, why don't we go back and revisit Sylvia's semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar to find out? Had Ted or Sylvia's legions of unforgiving fans been closer readers they might have gleaned some all-important self-knowledge. For those of you who haven't read it, The Bell Jar is about a fast-tracked Smithie (Sylvia, who calls herself Esther) who goes to New York for an internship at a posh girls magazine the summer the Rosenbergs get electrocuted. She pigs out at a banquet on alligator pears stuffed with a crabmeat and mayonnaise salad. The crab is off and she gets a serious case of food poisoning. Then her mind slowly starts to unravel. She returns home acting very odd. Sylvia/Esther hobbles along with everyone trying really hard not to notice she's not well. Her mother does sense something is amiss and gets a neighbor to drive her to Boston for the occasional horrifying shock treatment. In this time, Sylvia/Esther also manages to say a lot of wierd things about the Catholic Church like Catholics have x-ray eyes... Finally, she trys to take her own life and finds herself installed in the happy tablet academy. Besides having nicer shock treatments, Sylvia/Esther soon is rooming with the previous girlfriend of the Yalie Sylvia/Esther had dated during her downward mental spiral. After reading about Sylvia/Esther's suicide attempt in the newspaper, the previous girlfriend had attempted to kill herself. The Yalie, Buddy Willard, who has been institutionalised himself, for TB and not mental instability, writes both girls at the happy tablet academy. He wants to visit them. The letters, along with other events, triggers the previous girlfriend to successfully hang herself. Sylvia allows Buddy to visit her. This is part of their conversation:
"I've been wondering..." Buddy set his cup in the saucer with an awkward clatter.
"What have you been wondering?"
"I've been wondering...I mean, I thought you might be able to tell me something." Buddy met my eyes and I saw, for the first time, how he had changed. Instead of the old, sure smile that flashed on easily and frequently as a photographer's bulb, his face was grave, even tentative-the face of a man who often does not get what he wants.
"I'll tell you if I can, Buddy."
"Do you think there is something in me that drives women crazy?"
I couldn't help myself, I burst out laughing-maybe because of the seriousness of Buddy's face and that common meaning of the word "crazy" in a sentence like that.
"I mean," Buddy pushed on, "I dated Joan, and then you, and first you...went, and then Joan..."
With one finger I nudged a cake crumb into a drop of wet, brown tea.
"Of course you didn't do it!" I heard Dr. Nolan say. I had come to her about Joan, and it was the only time I remember her sounding angry. "Nobody did it. She did it." And then Dr. Nolan told me how the best of psychiatrists have suicides among their patients, and how they, if anybody, should be held responsible, but how they, on the contrary, do not hold themselves responsible...
"You had nothing to do with us, Buddy."
"You're sure?"
"Absolutely."
"Well," Buddy breathed. "I'm glad of that."
Sylvia Plath was a highly-intelligent, creative and fragile woman. At the time of her suicide, she was coping with running a home, raising young children, an unfaithful husband, his mistress living under her roof, and pressures from her own intellectual pursuits. Her husband, aware of her past, ought to have made sure her home enviroment as well as her marriage was a stable one. He did not. Unfortunately though for Sylvia's children, she was the one who chose to end her life.
It is interesting how, Sylvia's later life reflected the semi-autobiographical one she depicted in The Bell Jar. Two women with mental instabilities involved with the same man. The difference being in real life both women's suicides were successful. If this fact were looked at more honestly by someone with good psychological training, it might be interesting. We also may learn a thing or two.
Mrs. P
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