Advanced English

Module C: Representation and Text

Formative Task 2


Various representations of events, personalities or situations lead to conflicting perspectives.
Discuss this statement through detailed analysis of the poetry of Ted Hughes and ONE
related text.

Various representations and points of view can cause incompatible perceptions of events,
personalities and situations as composers make deliberate choices to create purpose.
In Ted Hughes collection of Birthday Letters he represents himself as innocent and nave, to the
deceptive, self-destructive Plath, reflecting the nature of representation as he contests 35 years of
public discourse towards his portion of blame in Plaths suicide. Radical feminist poet, Robin
Morgan also reflects the various representations of perspectives in the form of polemic poetry
seen in Arrangement. Here she uses her poem as a weapon to damage Hughes reputation,
blaming him for Plaths death harshly.

In the deliberate choices of Hughes within Fulbright Scholars he creates conflicting
representation through a double perspective. This is seen as he reflects Plath as unstable, out of
control and provocative. Within the poem Hugh represents Plath initially through the perspective
of his younger self alluding to 1940s Hollywood, seen as he states Noted your long hair, loose
waves Your Veronica Lake Bang. Writing in Plaths own form of confessional poetry, here, he
reveals Plaths capacity for deception, continuing such connotations with a series of statements.
Thus Hughes reveals how his perspective is limited by his understanding of time as it conflicts
with hindsight. His later retrospect is embodied in his poem through the repetition of peach, a
reference to the noticeable different in flavour due to age, established by T.S Elliot as he stated Do
I dare eat a peach? This intertextual reference to Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock can be seen as a
parallel into the younger perspective of Hughes, and the knowledge he has gained with hindsight.
Similarly within Your Paris Hughes reflects an understanding of representation through hindsight
in the listing Grin for the cameras, the judges, the strangers, the frighteners. In this he suggests an
element of insecurity which Plath doesnt express for the camera. This exemplifies the way in
which a different for and medium such as photography can be limited in comparison to a form
such as poetry, however highly subjective. Consequently Hughes perspective within Fulbright
Scholars and Your Paris reveals through conflicting perspective that although poetry is based on
autobiographical experiences, they are also constructs of an artist who has manipulated both
language and experience to influence the reader.

A conflicting perspective is furthermore created in Plaths poem Daddy as her work contradicts
Hughes nativity. Plaths poem represents an expression of outlet, highlighting through everyday
experiences, the concerns of her time, she states I have lived like a foot for thirty years In this
simile she foregrounds the submissive role of women to men, critiquing the domestic
containment and her own gender role. She continues with a sense of repression as she states
Scraped flat by the roller of wars, wars, wars. This metaphor, in its repetition is suggestive of
violence inflicted by the patriarchal powers, and further questions the patriarchal role of women,
suggesting subtle, feminist values. Lastly a sustained metaphor of male dominance is referenced
within the terms daddy, black shoe and fresco seal. Within sustained metaphor she also gives
historical references to WWII, and Nazism stating a German, Hitler and war machine reflecting
the post-WWII context she, and Hughes wrote in. These references of sustained metaphor
however created a sense of victimization, and oppression by male figures, reflecting her
challenging and conflicting perspective.