svad
Active Member
All his other poems are really the same thing. Because of Plath's poems, her readers pinned Hughes as the main cause of her trauma and death, and Hughes' 'Birthday letters' is nothing but a response to 'Ariel' as an attempt to clear his name during this time (although he really enforces how shitty he is imo lmao). So he's really taking her exact motifs in each poem - the ones which describe her struggle against the patriarchy - and turning these motifs against her to make her suffering seem unreasonable. He does this with almost all his poems.
Keep in mind contextually, Hughes had burned many of Plath's poems after her death, especially ones which spoke about him and how he effect her. All his poems in 'Birthday letters' are essentially an attempt to victimise himself using the poems where Plath explores HER victimhood. I actually don't know how this could relate to a bigger picture though lmao
