Showing posts with label February 12 1963. Show all posts
Showing posts with label February 12 1963. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 12, 2025

"Sylvia Died Yesterday"


"Sylvia died yesterday," said the cablegram from Ted Hughes to Sylvia Plath's aunt Dorothy on 12 February 1963. Dorothy called Sylvia's brother Warren. The pink page above is Aurelia Plath's carbon copy of "Last Commentary," written in 1974, describing how she learned about Sylvia's death. Aurelia wanted this published in Letters Home. Her editor reduced it to its first sentence.

Aurelia's is the only report of this event. It's in the Sylvia Plath archive at Smith College. The complete page, with its handwritten annotations, says:

(Last Commentary)

[[in black ink]] -- as it really was 

[[in pencil, upper right corner]] from Final Account Folder 6/7/74 

On February 12, 1963, my sister received a cablegram from Ted, stating, "Sylvia died yesterday," and giving time and place of funeral. No mention of the cause of death or of the whereabouts and condition of the children!

When I came home, later than usual, for I had stopped to have a hair shampoo and set after I had left Boston University, I saw Warren's car parked outside of my house. Thinking they had come for a surprise visit, I dashed joyously into the house, greeting both Warren and Margaret happily. They were very quiet, I noticed. We sat down in the living room and exchanged a few inconsequential remarks. Then I became aware of the tense atmosphere, the constraint evident in each of them. "You've come to break bad news to me," I then said, giving them the opening they were seeking. They told me of the cablegram Dorothy had received that morning. "The children," was my first cry. "What of the children!"

"Margaret called the British Consul in Boston, and we have learned they are alive and being cared for," Warren assured me. Then he told me he and Margaret were planning to go to England immediately. I wanted the children to be in our joint care. They promised they would do all they could to achieve this arrangement, urging me not to join them, persuading me that my presence might make such arrangements more difficult. My minister, the late Reverend William Brooks Rice, agreed with Warren and Margaret. [[added in blue ink]] so did my physician, Dr. Robert Brownlee. 

That's Aurelia's story. [1] In real life she was probably beyond stunned to hear that her daughter was dead and guessed at once that it was suicide. Aurelia likely raved about Ted's cowardice in routing the shocking news through Dorothy and not naming any cause. I bet she argued long with Warren before conceding that she should not go to England. And in this account she proper-named her minister and doctor, I think to quash readers' suspicions that they weren't consulted.

Like all of Aurelia's elaborations this account is defensive. She wanted readers to know that titled authorities advised her to skip the funeral, lest readers think she didn't go because she didn't care. The shampoo-and-set excuse backs Aurelia's claim that she was habitually home from work by 3 p.m. to greet Sylvia and Warren after school, not an "absent parent." Had the "bring the children to America" plan come through, instead of seizing and smothering the kids Aurelia would have nicely co-parented. 

The text seems to suggest concern for the grandkids eclipsed her concern for her daughter, but by 1974 Aurelia knew better than to write about Sylvia's death: Ted would edit it out. Aurelia, who knew every dirty detail, had to keep them secret or he'd deny her visits with the kids. And Ted sure didn't want us to know he'd burdened Dorothy and Warren with breaking the news -- although if I were Dorothy I'd probably have phoned Aurelia first. What Aurelia wanted publicly known is that she put the children's welfare above all.

Most of Aurelia's 1960s journals, or those that survive, convey much the same, recording only her annual visits with Frieda and Nick. She once called the chidren "pieces of Sylvia." That sounds awful, but for Aurelia the children were more than that. They were vessels for Aurelia's love, which Aurelia expected to be returned. It wasn't. She believed, or pretended to believe, in her century's campaign to persuade women that families were bound by love and members should love each other: the spiritual equivalent of painting little red hearts on everything. 

[1] AureliaPlath.info followers already know how to read Aurelia's anecdotes. If you don't, please see "It's Aurelia's Story and She's Sticking To It," Aureliaplath.info, 11 February 2025.