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Ted Hughes/Sylvia Plath

 

            
             Congratulations, you have been accepted into the final round of Auditions for the part of Sylvia Plath. For this audition you are required to act out the following scene, from the script attached.
             The part of Plath will not be an easy role, so I have some suggestions on how you should play this role. I also recommend that you read some of Plath's and Hughes' poetry to get some ideas as to their opinions of each other.
             Plath was a very complicated person. She started out with a rough childhood, stemmed mainly from conflict with her father. He was badly wounded by the war, not necessarily physically, but emotionally, he talked almost incessantly about the war, specifically the conflict between Germany and Poland. The effects of the war, and her father, can be seen strongly in Plath's poem - Daddy where she explains her feelings toward him. She saw him as a Hitler like German extremist, and demonstrates a fear and hatred towards him, she tells us that even after her father's death, when she was ten. In spite of her fear and hatred, she was unable shed any memories of him, and this drove her into depression; she was still under her fathers control from beyond the grave. .
             Hughes' The Minatoar compares her father, and his influence over her, with the ancient beast, the Minatoar, through the use of a metaphor. He believes that it is her father who has ruined her, their marriage, and their children. In this poem he also portrays her as a highly volatile, unstable and short tempered person, she destroyed a sentimental piece of furniture, because he was twenty minutes late to look after their children.
             In another of Hughes' poems, My Paris, he discusses his experiences and point of views from their honeymoon. In this poem he is highly critical of her, complaining of her apparent inability to find the deeper meaning of various things. He saw Paris as a war broken place, and was solemn and mindful in his comments on the surroundings.


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