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jrknothead
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23 Mar 2009, 11:36 am

Sylvia Plath's son commits suicide

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LONDON (AFP) – The son of tragedy-scarred poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath has killed himself 46 years after his mother gassed herself, The Times reported on Monday.

Nicholas Hughes hanged himself in his home in the US state of Alaska last week after battling depression, his sister told the newspaper, 40 years to the day after Hughes' next lover also killed herself.

Hughes was a professor of fisheries and ocean sciences at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, although he had recently left the post shortly before he died to set up a pottery at home.

"It is with profound sorrow that I must announce the death of my brother, Nicholas Hughes, who died by his own hand on Monday 16th March 2009 at his home in Alaska," Frieda Hughes said in a statement published by The Times.

"He had been battling depression for some time."

Nicholas Hughes was unmarried, and had no children.

Plath killed herself by breathing in fumes from a kitchen oven in February 1963, preventing the fumes from seeping into her children's room by sealing the kitchen door with towels.

Ted Hughes, who died in 1998, suffered another loss six years later when his mistress Assia Wevill gassed herself and their daughter on March 23, 1969, in an apparent copycat suicide.

Critics have long accused the English poet of driving Plath -- whom he met when she was on a Fulbright Scholarship from the United States -- to her death because of his relationships with other women.

Hughes remained silent on Plath's death for years, until shortly before his death when he examined their turbulent life together and his reaction to her death in Birthday Letters, published in 1998.



Tragic... :?



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23 Mar 2009, 11:47 am

Thank you for posting this. This is incredibly tragic, but it was good to learn more background on Plath.


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enchantedsleeper
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26 Mar 2009, 6:09 am

Wow, how depressing. I second the sentiments above. I know some things about Sylvia Plath from having read most of a book containing all her letters to various family members - we also studied Mirror, which I love, some years ago in English, but not in any great depth - but I never knew anything about her son or her own suicide. The suicide of Assia Wevill I find most bizarre. She killed their daughter too?! Did Ted Hughes have some kind of effect on his loved ones that made them want to kill themselves? That's pretty extreme...


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pakled
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26 Mar 2009, 9:10 pm

like mother, like son.



DocStrange
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27 Mar 2009, 4:31 pm

"The Bell Jar", despite being pretty depressing is a great book. Sylvia Plath really had a gift for description in her works.


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Anemone
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27 Mar 2009, 9:15 pm

enchantedsleeper wrote:
Did Ted Hughes have some kind of effect on his loved ones that made them want to kill themselves? That's pretty extreme...


It looks like that, doesn't it? Except I expect that he was attracted to people who were already having problems with depression. He could have been making things worse for them, but he wasn't responsible for them being like that in the first place. At least I don't think so.



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29 Mar 2009, 12:43 pm

Sad.

But I wonder if there isn't something genetic about depression being as severe as that.

I have a family history of suicidal deaths, and have attempted it myself a few times before getting a good doctor.

So sometimes it's one of those things that can't be logically explained except maybe in brain theory.


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sartresue
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29 Mar 2009, 3:10 pm

Genetics and Depression topic

I have had a minor special interest in Plath, the Hugheses and Wevill for more than 30 years, and Anemone has a valid point about Hughes' interest in certain women, and who would be interested in him. A real Don Juan. :x

tragic about Nicholas, who was very quiet and did not write poetry, unlike his father, sister, mother and stepmother, Assia Wevill. No mention of his other relatives, notably Sylvia's brother Warren Plath and his family, and Gerald Hughes, Ted's brother. :?

I guess the family wishes to mourn in private.


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gina-ghettoprincess
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29 Mar 2009, 3:16 pm

That's very sad.

I agree with MissConstrue that it might be genetic.


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