2011 HSC Paper 2 Section III Module C
Explore how the poetry of Ted Hughes and ONE other related text of your own choosing
represent conflicting perspectives in unique and evocative ways
Prescribed text: Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes, 1998 (Poetry)
Related text: Autumn Laing by Alex Miller, 2010 (Novel)
Opening general
sentence about
controversy which links
the two texts with the
idea of conflicting
perspectives and then is
narrowed to the topics
of creativity and
relationships
Writers and artists attract controversy. In breaking barriers they develop
new creative forms that challenge accepted perceptions and lead to
conflicting perspectives about their work. But often the divided opinions
are not just about the act of creativity but about the relationships of
people around them. Divided opinion around fraught relationships is
what, paradoxically, connects British poet, Ted Hughes, with Australian
artist, Sidney Nolan. Ted Hughes’ collected poems in Birthday Letters
are addressed to his wife, Sylvia Plath, and underpinning them there is a
sense of constant conflict as he implicitly attacks her perspective. In his
novel, Autumn Laing, Alex Miller creates a new story that uses the
relationship of Sidney Nolan (Pat Donlon) with Sunday Reed (Autumn
Laing), to explore conflicting views of art and relationships. These two
texts use different forms but they both represent conflicting perspectives
in unique and evocative ways through careful choices of language.
A logical connection is
made between the
background context of
the poems, which is
followed by an
overview about
perspectives in the
poems, and then a link
to the thesis about
relationships
The poems in Birthday Letters are memories of events that took place
during the turbulent relationship of Ted Hughes with poet Sylvia Plath
and as such cannot be divorced from their context. On the surface they
are a search for truth, asking questions, thoughtfully considering and
weighing up events to come to an understanding. But, underlying this
rationality, lies a clear personal agenda, to reclaim Hughes’ reputation
from the criticism he faced after his relationship from Plath ended with
her suicide. However, even without this knowledge, the poems are
defensively responding to perspectives. The thing that links all the
poems – apart from the sorting through memories – is the passion of
the relationship moving from romantic to violent moments, from critical
to wondrous.
Uncertainty is explored
through the technique
of questions
A repeated feature of all the poems is uncertainty which is conveyed
through such techniques as the use of questions. ‘Fulbright scholars’
opens with a question on place (“Where was it, in the Strand?”) and
moves on to questions on people (“Were you among them?”) and then
ends with question on actions (“Was it then I bought a peach?”). These
questions serve to guide the reader through the process of recovering
memory. Hughes examines the photo closely but “not too minutely”. He
anticipates attacks on his version of the story when he asserts “I
remember that thought” but at the same time he admits that he does not
remember her (“Not your face”).
Techniques are used to
drive the discussion on
the poems, showing
how language choices
influence perspective1
The idea of uncertainty
continues, focusing on
Uncertainty takes over in the repeated use of the modal “maybe”,
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These paragraphs may focus on a technique but the techniques are used to support and argument about
uncertainty. Just explaining techniques without is not a good way to discuss poems as it can lead to
explanation of isolated lines without analysis or synthesis of ideas
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a different technique –
in this case, it is looking
at modals and pronouns
Long quotations should
be indented and do not
need to have quotations
marks
contrasted with the detail of the reference to her appearance “long hair,
loose waves – / Your Veronica Lake bang.” This suggestion of
attraction and moment of loving is quickly dispelled by the negative
phrase, “Not what it hid”, which immediately alerts the reader to a
darker side. The elusiveness of the memory is captured in his
contradictory admission: “Then I forgot. Yet I remember/The picture:
the Fulbright scholars.” The first person pronoun is set against the
second person throughout the poem reflecting the subsequent
opposition of Hughes and Plath. In the last few lines the poem moves
away from the issue of unreliable and oppositional memories stimulated
by the photo to the certainty of what he was doing at the time, walking
“sore-footed, under hot sun, hot pavements”, when he bought a peach
from Charing Cross Station. It is in this section that the poem changes
in tone from conflictual to sentimental and even romantic. The purchase
of the peach can be seen as a metaphor for the beginning of their
relationship which came at a time when he was not comfortable with
himself:
…the first peach I ever tasted.
I could hardly believe how delicious.
At twenty-five I was dumbfounded afresh
by my ignorance of the simplest things.
These last few lines demonstrate the power of the poem and of poetry
to convey a point of view. The pleasure of this memory of something
new and fresh becomes associated with Plath, despite the uncertainty of
how they first met. All the contradictions that characterise the first part
of the poem are lost in the certainty of the experience. It is a subtle but
pointed comment that illustrates different perspectives in the poem:
from factual account of a newspaper photo to a sensual account of the
experience of eating a peach, imbued with sexual connotations.
The word same connects
to last idea
The opening is linked
to perspectives
Supporting evidence is
given to continue the
argument of the
previous paragraph.
The paragraph ends
with as strong analysis
of the purpose of
perspectives that related
directly to the module
and the questions
The same passion is a feature of the encounter of Autumn Laing with
Pat Donlon in the novel Autumn Laing. The novel opens, like Hughes’
poem, looking back. “They are all dead, and I am old and skeletongaunt.” Autumn Laing remembers the place “in the shadows of the old
coach house… Blue smoke in the sunblades cutting the interior dark
into shapes – in imitation of a painter we once admired.” This visually
intense opening reinforces that this is a novel about a painter and about
painting; it also reminds us that perspectives on painters change as time
moves on.
Autumn Laing’s strong views on artists are not always in agreement with
the views of others and she acknowledges this and her own changing
perspective as she revisits the past and her memories. She finds a
painting by Edith, Pat’s first wife. Autumn’s husband, Arthur Laing, had
admired it with musical metaphors as being “…lovely. A piece of music.
A little nocturne” but it is only after the passage of time that Autumn
realises its merit. “I had never really looked at her painting before … I
was so one-eyed in my belief in the rightness … of modernism’s cause
that any artist who worked in the conservative tradition as Edith did was
automatically excluded from my serious attention.” Autumn’s revelation
reveals that perspective is about reinforcing your own beliefs and values,
defensively and selectively. Perspectives are not just a personal response:
they are philosophical ways of being that are self-preserving, excluding
all other views. They are also contextualised, part of different epochs
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and stages in one’s life.
The word epoch in the
past paragraph moves
on to link with stages…
in life
The discussion focuses
on the effect of the
pronoun to convey
different perspectives
This paragraph
continues the ideas
developed in the
previous paragraph but
focusing this time on
the metaphors to
explore perspectives
Sums up the ideas
conveyed by the
evidence in the
previous paragraphs
It is in visiting different stages and places in his life that Hughes
continues his exploration of the relationship with Plath. The poem
provocatively titled ‘Your Paris’ immediately implies a conflicting
perspective in the second person possessive pronoun. Hughes sets up
his and Plath’s view of Paris as oppositions. He presents himself
positively as sensitive to the role of Paris in the then recent violence of
World War II, which he reads in “each bullet scar in the Quai
stonework”. Paris becomes their own battleground where their
individual perspectives indicate a deeper conflict. Plath, in contrast to
Hughes, is insensitive and can only see the “Impressionist paintings”,
the writers who lived in Paris, “Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Henry Miller,
Gertrude Stein”. His choice of writers critically emphasizes Plath’s
narrow world-view, centred on America and indicated in the opening of
the poem: “Your Paris, I thought, was American.” The inclusion of “I
thought” in many ways tempers the exclusive effect of the statement but
the criticism is pervasive. He implies that her view may be literary and
artistic but it lacks sympathy for the people of Paris. “I kept my Paris
from you.”
There is clear animosity in this poem but Hughes perseveres in
presenting himself as the one with insight, staring at “the stricken
exposure of pavement”. His negative attitude to Plath is further
developed in the metaphors of her expressions as she faces Paris (“your
ecstacies ricocheted”, “a shatter of exclamations”, “your lingo / Always
like an emergency burn-off”) suggesting that her ignorance of the past
was as violent as the war that had marked so much of Paris. All of
Hughes’ senses are heightened: he sees the controversial relationships
formed in the Nazi period with “SS mannequins”; he tastes the coffee
“still bitter / As acorns”; he smells “the stink of fear still hanging in the
wardrobes” – all signs of Paris as a “post-war utility survivor”. In
contrast, the sustained metaphor of the artist persists in reference to
Plath with her “immaculate palette”. Despite these very antagonistic
views of Plath resented in anger, the poem changes in tone as it
progresses. Hughes becomes a dog who seeks out the “underground, the
hide-out /That chamber” where Plath waited for her “stone god.” From
here there is a classical allusion to the labyrinth, a motif that pervades
many of the poems, implying the difficulty of coming near the centre of
Plath but also the fear of her father, “the minotaur”. Suddenly we see a
very different perspective of Plath, as Hughes excuses her “gushy
burblings” as part of her “pain” and “torment” seen in her “flayed
skin”. As her dog he is “loyal” and “happy to protect”.
The poem is originally an attack, setting up Hughes’ perspective as
superior to Plath’s, but we see Hughes turn the poem around to
acknowledge the inner pain of Plath. He justifies the attack on Plath by
placing blame for her psychological torment on her father, the “stone
god”, the “minotaur”. Hughes has used strong oppositional imagery to
track the breakdown of a relationship in a way that does not allow us to
hear the other voice. That he is responding to a conflicting perspective
about his relationship to Plath is clear in the defensive language used,
but by silencing her voice and only offering his voice, we do not fully
comprehend the whole argument. The meaning is further veiled in the
poetic form, which favours a perspective by subtle and creative language
selection. In the two poems ‘Fulbright Scholars’ and ‘Your Paris’, there
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is also a clear structure which foregrounds the negative view of Plath
and offers excuses near the end. In this way, Hughes further controls the
voice we hear.
This paragraph on the
related text moves
through the different
ways perspective
operates in the text:
firstly through the point
of view of the narrator,
then the reader’s own
understanding and
finally through the
author who makes the
critical decisions about
which character’s point
of view to privilege
Conclusion links the
author, the text and
perspective and ends
with a comment about
the way perspectives
mediate reality
Just like Hughes, Autumn Laing is dealing with the past and is
controlling the perspective. She has been hounded by a biographer who
wants her life story. “Let her struggle for her own truths”, she says,
believing “our truths are written in our hearts and are not a currency of
exchange.” This perspective is seen in the way she reacts to seeing Edith,
the ex-wife of her lover Pat. A chance encounter has awakened a search
for truth but what she finds is that expectations about perspectives are
not always accurate. Even in her own past, her Uncle Matthew’s
relationship with her as a young girl from the age of eleven is presented
as positive and a source of love and yet as readers we can understand
this differently as exploitation of a child. Her young adult years after her
uncle’s death are confused and immoral, indicating that his effect on her
was not positive. Presenting the text from one point of view can remove
dissenting voices but Miller cleverly allows us space to read our own
interpretation. He moves from the first person perspective to third
person but even this is mediated by Autumn who is writing the
biography and presents herself as she wants to be seen. Miller does,
however, give space for different views by subtly inserting a letter from
Pat, the opinions of others as reported by Autumn and the final word
from the biographer who claims that Autumn has had to “distort my
identity to serve her purposes”. We have to decide which perspective is
valid.
Hughes writes about a reality, about his wife, but is in fact the central
character in his own grand narrative with a meandering plot that
wanders through events in his married life from the perspective of time
and in reaction to public criticism. As a novelist, Miller’s book takes real
people and a relationship that was publicly criticized but crafts his own
story. His narrator, Autumn, warns the reader that realism is “that most
difficult of styles, filled as it is with intricacy and contradiction.” It is
therefore through understanding different perspectives, especially
conflicting perspectives, that we come to a realisation that truth is a
mediated reality, a representation that is controlled by the person
speaking.
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