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| Hearsay: |
Extremely sad news for a family plagued with sadness and, more clinically, depression. Hughes, 47, hung himself 46 years after his mother, the great poet Sylvia Plath, gassed herself in the family kitchen.
The news of his death adds to the tragic history of the family.
His mother, Sylvia Plath, was separated from Ted Hughes when she killed herself by breathing in fumes from the kitchen oven in February 1963.
She prevented the fumes from seeping into her children’s room by sealing the door with towels.
Six years later, Ted Hughes suffered another loss when his mistress gassed herself and their daughter in an apparent copycat suicide.
That’s a little reductive…
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March 23rd, 2009 at 9:22 am
That’s so sad. He seems to have been an intelligent, accomplished man. It’s so sad tht this illness has to take so many creative, wonderful lives. It’s been my opinion for a long long time, that depression affects far too many people who think. I”ve often wondered what it would be like to be ignorant of the world and the suffering in it. It must be a quiet and pleasant place to be, if you dont know what’s going on.
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:46 am
Plath separated from Hughes by gassing herself? That’s a very odd way to put it.
The death of Nicholas Hughes is a tragedy. It’s also more than a little sad that his life will now be interpreted only in terms of his death, as has that of his mother, and perhaps even more, that both his life and death will be overshadowed by the story of his mother and father. The Tiems Online obituary headline names him “Sylvia Plath’s Son”. Will he no longer be Ted Hughs’ son?
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:50 am
The obit from Fairbanks is focussed on Nicholas:
[see link above]
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:32 am
Depression is dangerous. No matter who your parents were. Part of the illness’s mystery is the familial bent it takes. When the black dog’s got your throat, your accomplishments do not matter. Your past does not matter. Your future does not exist. All that exists is the pain.
Dreadful news.