Travesty of Truth: A Reading of Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters

Abstract

In last of his confessional anthology of eighty eight verses, ‘Birthday Letters'(1998), Ted Hughes endeavours to uphold  his bitter-sour conjugal relationship with Sylvia Plath.But ironically, he fails to represent truth and what he presents is nothing but travesty and perversion of half-truth. The reading shows how Hughes takes pain to prove himself honest, innocent and guiltless and holds Plath solely responsible for the catastrophic end of their conjugal life,  with the suicide of Plath. He paints per as a psychopath suffering from Electra complex. She is painted as a great bird of prey during their love-making. Again, she is compared to panther, the ferocious beast of prey. She is depicted by Hughes as a feverish, impulsive, possessive  and traumatic psychopath.. Even her beauty is mockingly presented by Hughes which is a lie,  for she was truly beautiful. He accuses her by saying that  he was ‘dumfounded' by her whereas the truth is just the opposite. Hughes left Plath for Assia Gutmann and it is his extra-marital affair which drove her further to depression and desperation. The study further depicts that he never played the role of a ‘nurse' which he demands but a hagman's that led her to commit suicide.  The reading intends to show that ‘Birthday Letters' is not a poetic statement of a sincere lover and an honest husband but a capricious, heartless and cruel man who cowardly wants to defend himself at the cost of his deceased wife.This is not fair. The travesty of truth is unveiled as the readers judge his false reasonings and arguments.