"I loved her, I did my best to make her happy, but she was obssessed with her dead father and it killed her."
Ted Hughes
The Shot - Ted Hughes
Your worship needed a god.
Where it lacked one, it found one.
Ordinary jocks became gods –
Deified by your infatuation
That seemed to have been designed at birth for a god.
It was a god-seeker. A god-finder.
Your Daddy had been aiming you at God
When his death touched the trigger.
In that flash
You saw your whole life. You richocheted
The length of your Alpha career
With the fury
Of a high-velocity bullet
That cannot shed one foot-pound
Of kinetic energy. The elect
More or less died on impact –
They were too mortal to take it. They were mind-stuff,
Provisional, speculative, mere auras.
Sound-barrier events along your flightpath.
But inside your sob-sodden Kleenex
And your Saturday night panics,
Under your hair done this way and that way,
Behind what looked like rebounds
And the cascade of cries diminuendo,
You were undeflected.
You were gold-jacketed, solid silver,
Nickel-tipped. Trajectory perfect
As through ether. Even the cheek-scar,
Where you seemed to have side-swiped concrete,
Served as a rifling groove
To keep you true.
Till your real target
Hid behind me. Your Daddy,
The god with the smoking gun. For a long time
Vague as mist, I did not even know
I had been hit,
Or that you had gone clean through me –
To bury yourself at last in the heart of the god.
In my position, the right witchdoctor
Might have caught you in flight with his bare hands,
Tossed you, cooling, one hand to the other,
Godless, happy, quieted.
I managed
A wisp of your hair, your ring, your watch, your nightgown.
Where it lacked one, it found one.
Ordinary jocks became gods –
Deified by your infatuation
That seemed to have been designed at birth for a god.
It was a god-seeker. A god-finder.
Your Daddy had been aiming you at God
When his death touched the trigger.
In that flash
You saw your whole life. You richocheted
The length of your Alpha career
With the fury
Of a high-velocity bullet
That cannot shed one foot-pound
Of kinetic energy. The elect
More or less died on impact –
They were too mortal to take it. They were mind-stuff,
Provisional, speculative, mere auras.
Sound-barrier events along your flightpath.
But inside your sob-sodden Kleenex
And your Saturday night panics,
Under your hair done this way and that way,
Behind what looked like rebounds
And the cascade of cries diminuendo,
You were undeflected.
You were gold-jacketed, solid silver,
Nickel-tipped. Trajectory perfect
As through ether. Even the cheek-scar,
Where you seemed to have side-swiped concrete,
Served as a rifling groove
To keep you true.
Till your real target
Hid behind me. Your Daddy,
The god with the smoking gun. For a long time
Vague as mist, I did not even know
I had been hit,
Or that you had gone clean through me –
To bury yourself at last in the heart of the god.
In my position, the right witchdoctor
Might have caught you in flight with his bare hands,
Tossed you, cooling, one hand to the other,
Godless, happy, quieted.
I managed
A wisp of your hair, your ring, your watch, your nightgown.
The Shot explores the ideas of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes intimate relationship and the
cause of Plath's tragic death. The poem looks from Ted’s perspective of the influence
Plath’s father had on life. Critics say that Hughes aims to justify himself for the death of
Plath with the soul purpose being to point the blame to Plath’s “Daddy”. Hughes refers to
Plath through imagery of a gun throughout the poem due to her force and destruction.
Hughes says “the right witchdoctor might have caught you” giving the central idea that
Hughes himself believes someone better could have saved Plath. Although Hughes
perspective is in contrast with critics that Hughes was to blame for Plath’s suicide, Plath
was Hughes victim. This idea closely relates to the film Candy with main characters: Heath
Ledger, Abbie Cornish and Geoffrey Rush. Rush who plays Ledgers father like figure
overdoses on drugs resulting in a decline of Ledgers control on his drug use. Cornish plays
Ledgers girlfriend, she is influenced by Ledger but is able to gain control and abstain from
using drugs. She believes she was unable to help Ledger because of his deep unresolved
issues with Rush. Cornish’s family believe she is Ledger’s victim, the same as Plath being
Hughes victim.
cause of Plath's tragic death. The poem looks from Ted’s perspective of the influence
Plath’s father had on life. Critics say that Hughes aims to justify himself for the death of
Plath with the soul purpose being to point the blame to Plath’s “Daddy”. Hughes refers to
Plath through imagery of a gun throughout the poem due to her force and destruction.
Hughes says “the right witchdoctor might have caught you” giving the central idea that
Hughes himself believes someone better could have saved Plath. Although Hughes
perspective is in contrast with critics that Hughes was to blame for Plath’s suicide, Plath
was Hughes victim. This idea closely relates to the film Candy with main characters: Heath
Ledger, Abbie Cornish and Geoffrey Rush. Rush who plays Ledgers father like figure
overdoses on drugs resulting in a decline of Ledgers control on his drug use. Cornish plays
Ledgers girlfriend, she is influenced by Ledger but is able to gain control and abstain from
using drugs. She believes she was unable to help Ledger because of his deep unresolved
issues with Rush. Cornish’s family believe she is Ledger’s victim, the same as Plath being
Hughes victim.