Quote of The Day: Want Everything And Nothing (Part 5)

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This is the 5th part of the story. The previous parts are here: 1, 2, 3, 4.

If the after-life of Plath were a movie, Ted Hughes would be the main character who’s perpetually plagued by his wife’s ghost. There was no escape for him. He moved into the apartment his wife rented after their separation. Since there were several competitors who also wanted to rent the place, his wife paid the rent for a year in advance. Forced to live in this place for 10 months or so, he read through her diary and poems in an attempt to edit and publish them. He answered all the inquiries about his wife, by phone or by mail, since there was a growing interest in Plath. Everywhere he went, be it a conference, a reading, a meeting, a lecture, an event of any sort, he was chased by journalists, artists, writers, feminists and was forced to answer tough questions. He had to defend himself constantly against some dedicated Plath fans, who regularly published articles, accusing Ted of “pushing” his wife to suicide, reaping benefit from his “crime”, burning his wife’s diary, damaging Plath’s legacy. Against such vicious accusations, Ted fought bravely and ardently, despite the feeling that he was an one-man army against an enemy force of countless opponents.

Actually he didn’t even understand how he could get himself into such a mess in the first place. He grew up loved and adored by his mother and his sister and women around him. He loved and adored them back. He was bright, polite, handsome, and ambitious, which made women love him even more. He had a disdain and disregard for money, and took pride in his youthful poverty among the people of the literary circle. He gave an air of independence, but he would not let it extend into eccentricity or social isolation or arrogance that would keep women away. Plath was his angle and devil rolled into one. His easy relationship with women faced its most serious and fatal challenge in his marriage.

Plath was self absorbed; she was forever worried about money since they didn’t have any; she had idealistic goals for their life like close family ties, kids, house, garden, publication, professional recognition. Although each of these goals was attainable on its own, together they were not quite reachable without money, resources and other supports, which Plath didn’t have. She didn’t even have the family support since her mom and her brother were back in Boston. She spent hours after hours typing and organizing Ted’s writing on typewriters, and submitting them to various publication; she would try to find opportunities for Ted to read his poems or attend literary events. She wanted to be his family, his lover, his wife, his literary partner, his agent, his secretary all at once, and in the process she controlled his life. At least Ted felt that way.

With their increased publication and their BBC invitation and better financial stability, Plath was thinking that they were moving towards her idealistic goals successfully. However Ted was increasingly suffocated. He had been humoring Plath all along, comforting her when she had a meltdown after working too hard for too long, soothing her when she got anxious, placating with her when she got upset or angry. If he had other women, he hid them out of view. Or maybe he didn’t have any other women at all. This was late 1950s and early 1960s when internet was not there and women didn’t have the chance to post their trysts with a budding young poet on Instagram. Anyway, no other woman existed until Assia Wevill showed up. By then Ted, with his poem publication and new found fame, was eager to step out of his wife’s clutch. He openly defied and ignored Plath, cutting her off their long established intimacy and mutual regard, which he regretted profusely afterwards. He even said something to the effect that if only he had humored Sylvia…, but he didn’t and his leaving precipitated Plath’s demise.

Still I think it is unfair to say that Ted “pushed” his wife to suicide. He was not a good husband for sure, but he is not sadistic or vicious at all. This is the thing about love, or more accurately the social structure permitted for love to exist: a non vicious person or even a good person can hurt his or her partners just as severely as a vicious person can. Ted is really not a bad person and he should not be blamed for everything.

Most of his detractors and accusers were women and some even sent him death threats. Other than that, he also disliked those people who wanted to write about Sylvia Plath. It is not an exaggeration to say that every year, there was at least one book or one substantial article published on Plath. And often a book on Plath would push one’s career forward several steps since it was almost a guaranteed best seller. People got tenured professorship, directorship of a foundation, editorship of a magazine after such a publication. An obscure author could become well known just by writing about her; and a well known one could become better known. This trend continued for years and even decades.

Among all the people who wanted to write about Plath, one stood out as Ted’s friend and Plath’s enemy. Ted and his sister Olwyn–who took up the role of an agent to guard Plath’s legacy–liked her and her book of Plath, but little did they know that the book they liked provoked a bigger wave of controversy and a tsunami of accusations, much worse than all the other books combined.

(To Be Continued Here)