Sylvia Plath’s Son Commits Suicide
Can there be a more tragic literary and human scenario than this?
Plath commited suicide some 46 years ago. Now, her son Nicholas Hughes is dead by his own hand at 46. Nicholas was but an infant when Plath gassed herself to death in her kitchen with her two children in the next room. Long considered a great poet, Plath is often looked upon as a victim of her own depression and a deep angst at the infidelities of her husband Ted Hughes (another poet). But it’s the lurid and tragic nature of her death that perhaps has kept her so long in the public eye.
Suicide is often described as a victimless crime. But it is not so. The devastation that a suicide leaves behind can often never be repaired or recovered from, the loss of the loved one an unrecoverable and mystefying horror for all those left behind to wonder at and grieve.
There is no comfort that poetry or anything else can give when the survivors ponder “what might have been”, and try to deal with the tragic frustration of not having been able to stop the suicide from happening.
Guilt, sadness, horror, frustration, angst, grief – it’s a cauldron from which many do not ever escape.
My sympathies to Mr. Hughes’ friends and sister. What may appear to be an impossible situation today and seem to have no solution may look entirely different tomorrow or next week. Suicide is a permanent solution to temporary matters. There are solutions waiting to be found. Life is precious.
The Times of UK has an extensive story on Hughes here.
Dear Daniel,
Your post evokes memories of our own family tragedy from years ago. I was 9 when my maternal grandfather took his life; the effect upon my mother was the first real trauma I experienced in an otherwise peaceful and loving home. He did not leave a note of explanation, love or regret which as you can imagine served only to amplify the mystery. We still judge it to be among the cruelest and selfish acts one can perform and is a dramatic testimony to the effects of depression (my personal diagnosis). Fortunately, there has never been a repeat in the family and I pray there never will be.
Fish
Fish,
Thank you for your comments. Folks who make the decision to commit suicide rarely take into account the devastation and horror and pain that they leave behind them. Folks who commit suicide are overwhelmed with their own situation, they feel as if they’ve fallen into a hole with no light. They think they cannot escape, so when they’ve made their decision to leave sometimes, in the days and hours before, they seem to have a demeanor of relief or comfort about them. In their pain and confusion they think that they now have a way out of the darkness and pain. Looking back upon it, people who loved them who saw this demeanor can only wish they would have better understood, or if only the person in pain had asked for help.
Daniel