Plath and Hughes Context

Question 1

How old was Plath when she died?

Answer 1

30 (1932 - 1963)

Question 2

What year did Plath and Hughes marry?

Answer 2

1956

Question 3

When did her father die?

Answer 3

1940. Otto Plath was a beekeeper

Question 4

When did Plath try to commit suicide?

Answer 4

She tried to take her life aged 20, but was hospitalised and treated with electric shock therapy

Question 5

Where did she meet Hughes?

Answer 5

She met him at Cambridge and they married 4 months later

Question 6

How did Plath and Hughes’ marriage break down?

Answer 6

In unpublished letters to her therapist between 1960 and 1963, Plath alleged that Hughes beat her and that he told her he wished she were dead. They separated in 1962.

Question 7

Where was Hughes born?

Answer 7

Was born in 1930 in Mytholmroyd, a large village in Yorkshire. He enjoyed hunting, fishing and swimming. His parents owned a newspaper and tobacco shop.

Question 8

What were Hughes’ jobs post university?

Answer 8

Gardener, nightwatchman and a reader for a film company

Question 9

When was the atomic bomb created?

Answer 9

First tested in 1945 after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - mutually assured destruction

Question 10

Context for Crossing the Water?

Answer 10

References to Greek mythology - sirens are beautiful yet dangerous creatures and Charon is the river man of Hades who carries souls across the river styx.
Could reflect her feelings about moving from America to England.
‘Plath’s feelings about both England and America were ambivalent’ - Brain

Question 11

Who did Hughes have an affair with?

Answer 11

Assia Wevill

Question 12

Context for Heptonstall?

Answer 12

Heptonstall is a small village in Yorkshire where Plath is buried
Heptonstall is Anglo Saxon for hope

Question 13

Context for thistles?

Answer 13

This was written in 1967, one of the first poems he wrote after his three year hiatus after Plath’s suicide

Question 14

Context for Tulips?

Answer 14

This was written in March 1961, following her appendicitis surgery
Plath tried to take her own life in 1953

Question 15

Context for Finisterre?

Answer 15

Hughes and Plath went on holiday to Finisterre
Plath had three suicide attempts in her life

Question 16

Context for Rain?

Answer 16

Fox visited Hughes in a dream to get him to swap from English to anthropology

Question 17

Context for Letter in November?

Answer 17

Court Green was alongside a churchland
Written in November 1962 just after her and Hughes’ separation

Question 18

Context for November?

Answer 18

Reminiscent of Hughes upbringing in Yorkshire and his previous job at London zoo

Question 19

Context for Ariel?

Answer 19

This was written on 27th October 1962 - her 30th birthday
This was her favourite poem and Ariel was the name of her horse
This was the Old Testament name given to Jerusalem, meaning ‘God’s lion’
Allusion to Godiva - a landowner was imposing a higher tax so his wife rode naked through the town in protest. The townspeople promised not to look, except from peeping Tom

Question 20

Context for The Horses?

Answer 20

Written in early 1957 - horses are a staple of war (WW2)
Hughes’ father was one of the few surviving members of the doomed Gallipoli campaign

Question 21

Context for Spinster?

Answer 21

Reference to ‘babel’ in the first stanza is a biblical allusion to the huge tower which god saw as a front to his authority, He punished the people who built it by forcing them to speak different languages
Reference to ‘bedlam’ in the fourth stanza, which is an infamous mental institution
Written in 1956, the year they married
Gender stereotypes of the 1950s

Question 22

Context for Wind?

Answer 22

Just all the toxicness of his relationship with Plath

Question 23

Context for A Birthday Present?

Answer 23

Written in September 1962 after their separation
She miscarried her second pregnancy

Question 24

Context for The Lovepet

Answer 24

Violent imagery is reminiscent of a toxic relationship - infidelity with Assia Wevill on top of Plath claiming he was abusive

Question 25

Context for Lesbos?

Answer 25

This was an island associated with the Greek lyric poet Sappho, who wrote poems about love between women
Has been associated with Assia

Question 26

Context for Her Husband?

Answer 26

1960s gender roles where women had to be completely subservient as run the household for their husbands
Abortion was illegal and dangerous

Question 27

Context for You’re?

Answer 27

Written in 1960 - Frieda was born in April of that year

Question 28

Context for Full Moon and Little Frieda?

Answer 28

Written in 1967

Question 29

Context for Words?

Answer 29

Horses were a symbol of creative energy for Plath - she had a horse called Ariel

Question 30

Content for The Thought Fox?

Answer 30

Hughes had a dream in which a creature with a fox’s head came into his room, put bloody paw prints on an unfinished essay and said ‘you’re killing us’

Question 31

Context for Wuthering Heights?

Answer 31

The book is set on the Yorkshire moors and depicts a turbulent relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy. He gets revenge on people who were nasty to him when he was poor

Question 32

Context for Emily Bronte?

Answer 32

Wuthering heights was Emily Bronte’s only novel in 1487. She lived in Yorkshire and died at the age of 30

Question 33

Context for Mirror?

Answer 33

Context around Plath’s suicide attempts

Question 34

Context for Wodwo?

Answer 34

This was in the first collection after Plath’s death

Question 35

Context for Edge?

Answer 35

Classical allusion to the Medea legend where a woman is cheated on so she gets revenge by killing the children

Question 36

Context for Daddy?

Answer 36

Reference to telephone as Assia Wevill used to frequently call
Plath’s father died from a complication form a foot injury
Written October 12 1962, the day after Hughes left

Question 37

Context for Bayonet Charge?

Answer 37

1957 - reflects the experiences of his father in the doomed Gallipoli campaign
Diacope of ‘raw’ is reminiscent of Spring Offensive by Wilfred Owen