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This is the 3nd part of the story. The previous parts are here: 1 and 2.
At Cambridge, Plath was astonished by the women in the university. This was the end of 1950s and it is said the university only started to accept women into their campus several years earlier. And all the women dressed as if they were at a nunnery, or they wanted to have a life dedicated to scholarship and nothing else, at least in Plath’s opinion. She behaved very differently and her American manners were not looked upon with friendly eyes. I read about this many times in different books and it is quite mystifying to me. When Americans and British people talk about their differences in manners, visions, opinions etc., are they criticizing, complimenting, making jokes? Are they expressing dismay, amusement, sadness, pleasure, comfort or discomfort? I can’t tell. I was once or twice thrust into such a situation as a listener of this kind of conversation, and I didn’t know how to respond, agreeing, disagreeing, sympathizing, being silent, nodding or …
Anyway, after a year of study, she planned to make a surprise visit to Richard Sassoon, who was in Paris at the time. When she arrived, the doorman told her that Richard left for a vacation and would not return for another ten days at least. Plath was so disappointed that she came back to London and threw herself at Ted Hughes, a poet she had met at a party a while ago. They were both young and poor, and they could talk about poetry. However Plath didn’t have the emotional connection with Ted as with Richard Sassoon. Still Ted was tall and handsome, while Richard was short and not handsome. So Ted won.
The two soon got married. Somehow I don’t think Plath would want to get married if she could get away with having Ted as a boyfriend. The two were too poor to make the marriage economically viable. However, Plath was a good girl and was brought up to believe in marriage no matter what.
They were so poor that Plath had to ask her mother to send $100 for them. Her mother didn’t look on the marriage with a friendly eye since Ted was jobless and didn’t really care about jobs very much. Plath, after worrying about money all her life, continued to worry about money in her marriage. She tried all she could to send out her poems and Ted’s poems to various magazines in Britain and in America, just to get some money for their work. And Ted’s poet circle ridiculed Plath endlessly–her practicality was considered a form of materialistic display; her poem submission to magazines like Mademoiselle was treated as a poetic degradation.
Smith College offered Plath a position. So the young couple moved back to America. The year in Smith College was very draining for Plath since she had to prepare teaching material from scratch which was very time consuming; she had to submit poems everywhere to get publications; she had to socialize with people so that people could get Ted a job or an interview or a publication. The stress became too much to bear and she finally realized that if she wanted to be a poet, she had to quit teaching.
Finally, Ted got more recognition and he even got BBC interviews (radio interview at the time) and other opportunities. So the couple decided to move back to England. They published a couple of books and Plath finally felt more secure about their economic future. Instead of letting herself having a break and enjoy their modest success, Plath asked Ted to accompany her to go around to look at houses. Eventually they settled down on a property on the outskirt of the city, for which there was a big yard attached. Here Plath worked herself sick in taking care of the house, planting flowers, raising chickens, typing Ted’s poems for poetry submission, writing her own poems and her book “The Bell Jar”, giving birth to two children and having a miscarriage.
And then they became neighbors to Assia Wevill and David Wevill, which was the beginning of the end for Plath. Little did she know at the time that her life could be so fascinating to her fans and her after-life could be even more fascinating.
(To Be Continued Here)
Haoyan Do 
I’m really enjoying learning more about Plath, I was just watching a video about her life on TT and it was fascinating.
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Yes, her story is really fascinating. I hope nowadays a woman doesn’t have to go through what she went through. The society, her family and herself was making her life difficult…
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I wish women no longer had to go through that but life is still pretty tough for us. Although a bit better.
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Yes, more women are becoming aware of this problem and start to plan their life differently, or should I say more realistically? I mean I was brought up in complete false promises and false expectations. It is about time that we debunk myths that can damage our life.
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Absolutely. I was brought up that way too and live in a pretty conservative community. But those false promises needed to be shown for what they truly are- false.
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Yes, all conservative communities have their own myths and illusions. And growing up in these places, we have to take a long time to debunk them and unlearn what was being instilled in us. Some will never be able to debunk or unlearn. It is so sad.
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It’s true, some people never learn and end up miserable their whole lives.
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Yes, one has to be brutally brave and honest with oneself in order to see it for what it is.
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It’s just occurred to me that I’ve posted 3 replies without actually answering your question. What are we doing by saying all these things?
I don’t think Americans mean very much by what they say about Brits because they don’t really pay us that much attention. They make jokey remarks based on out-of-date info because they’re not really all that interested in us. It’s a lopsided “Special Relationship” where one side is much more interested in the relationship than the other.
Brits are more interested because they see the dominance of American culture and language as a bit of a threat – so they want to assert that there’s more than one way of being Anglophone, so to speak. There are other ways of viewing the world that are in danger of being forgotten.
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Really? I have always thought Americans are very interested in Brits. They love British accent, always have British actors (actresses) in their shows or movies, want to go their to have vacations or weddings (like in Friends), and watch Britcom. Oh, another thing, I’ve heard several times from people who said that they prefer books (especially fictions or biographies etc) written by British. I think I like both British and American books. I don’t have a leaning, but other people are different.
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True – I may have read too many newspaper articles by journalists who are trying to dispel the notion that there is a “Special Relationship” politically speaking. They think it’s a silly phrase that is used one-sidedly by the Brits.
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Oh, I see. That’s a layer of complexity that I have never thought about. A lot of things are so complicated nowadays. We often just see what we can see–the tip of a huge iceberg.
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Thinking about it again … one thing is definitely true. The average American is more inclined to strike up a conversation with a stranger – so more friendly in that sense.
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Oh, and another thing (as taxi drivers are supposed to say!) …. there is a perception of greater danger in the USA – guns, extreme weather and wildlife, draconian punishments.
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Oh, tell me about it. They like to chat friendly with you even if you are strangers. I have not been very good about it. I have to prepare beforehand what I need to say, like weather, food, cooking or something. And I know I also need to be humorous. And it is a lot of pressure and I often just don’t know what to say in such a situation.
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Yes – there are some things here that are familiar to me from reading Ted Hughes’ bio – plus some other things I didn’t know.
Brits often have inconsistent views of Americans. On the one hand Americans are loud and outgoing – on the other hand they are puritanical and take life more seriously. They are more sentimental and don’t understand irony are another two things that are often said here in the UK.
Likewise Americans probably used to think that Brits were very formal and polite. My impression these days is that it is Americans who are more formal and polite.
It just shows how inadequate generalisations can be when there is such a diversity of types of people in both countries.
My impression of life in the USA is maybe that it is harder work – fewer holidays, more of a battle for survival – yet a need to appear positive and aspirational at all times. But again that may be partly false since I’ve never lived there.
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My impression is that English speaking people are all polite and don’t let you know they are upset when they are upset about something. Or when they want to express something. I had somebody coming in to update the electricity or something, which was said by the association that it was required by the township. This person came in, did his work, and then he asked to use the bathroom. Afterwards, he told me that if I needed to fix something, I could call him. So I asked him to leave his number. After he was gone, I suddenly realized that he meant the faucet in the bathroom, which has not worked well lately. I didn’t even realize what he was talking about at the time when he was talking. I mean if he were an Asian, he would have said loudly, “fix your bathroom and I can help you.” Why can’t he just say it directly? I guess he is not practicing our Asian bluntness. LOL.
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Haha yes. I guess you have to read between the lines in our culture – that’s true. And it isn’t a pan-European thing because the Dutch are quite blunt. Given that New York used to be New Amsterdam, the Americans could have ended up with Dutch bluntness!
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Haha, Dutch bluntness. That sounds very interesting. I met a Dutch once in a party who married an American girl. Everybody was talking when the Dutch guy went to get his drink, someone said, “he is Dutch, you know”. i can’t even remember what the conversation was about, but somehow I still remember that the phrase “he is Dutch” seemed to explain a lot of things. It is like when we say, “he is Japanese” since Japanese tend to have a lot of weird things–just the stereotypical view. LOL.
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